"Wood" you be so kind? Trivia Quiz

Answer:

Roller coasters - at that time, all wooden of course - originated in the 17th century as "Russian Mountains", built as artificial hills with an iced surface upon which riders could slide down. In the 1750s, a variant of this design was built in France that used sleds in the winter, but trolleys on a steel track in the summer - the first true roller coaster.

In the 19th century, some mines operated gravity railways - tracks upon which carts with ore were sent to the valleys under their own gravity. Quickly, these rails not only became popular with the workers as a quick, exciting way to get home, but also with the local populace. The rides became so popular that the experience was reconstructed on fairs as "Scenic Railways". These rides featured a wooden support system, upon which a track of hills and drops as well as turns was laid - still the main setup of a wooden coaster of the 21st century. Scenic Railways featured a brakeman - the carts would run the track too fast without some speed control, so a brake operator riding in the train ensured the safety of riders. (That's a dream job if you ask me - ride a wooden coaster all day!)

By the early 1920s, roller coaster technology had developed to the point where trains could run on their own, without the need of staff, due to underfriction and side wheels - essentially wheels below and on the side of the main track that prevented the trains from derailing during sharp turns and airtime moments - hills that were passed at a high enough speed to briefly cause weightlessness.

The 1927 Cyclone at Coney Island is widely considered the icon of this first age of coasters, with its layout having been copied innumerable times around the world in the decades to come. However, from the 1930s, interest in roller coaster building experienced a sharp decline.

This only changed from the late 1950s, with coasters being built of steel instead of wood. One key ride in this development was Disneyland's Matterhorn Bobsleds. Quickly, steel coasters became the norm, being much easier to build and move from fair to fair than woodes ones. In the mid-1970s, the discovery of the clothoid curve as a design element allowed for the construction of safe loops and corkscrews - elements that turn the rider upside down, something which is not possible in a classic wooden design, in spite of several tries.

For the rest of the 20th century, steel dominated the rapidly expanding coaster market with wood being a rarity - most wooden designs of the time were closely inspired by or exact replicas of the Cyclone.

However, beginning around 2000, designers turned back to wood and its unique ride feeling and managed to create many designs that, while entirely different in experience, have their own special charm.

Even with that, a substantial number of subpar wooden coasters were built in that time and either never ran right or quickly wore out, presenting riders with a bumpy, rough experience. From around 2015 onwards, a company named Rocky Mountain Constructions started to care about these rides, retaining most of the basic wooden structure of these failed or simply aged designs but mounting a steel track structure on it that allows for inverting elements as well as a smoother experience. But that's a topic for another quiz...