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READING DAY 2

Roller Coaster
A

600 years ago, roller coaster pioneers never would have imagined the advancements that have been
made to create the roller coasters of today. The tallest and fastest roller coaster in the world is the
Kingda Ka, a coaster in New Jersey that launches its passengers from zero to 128 miles per hour in
3.5 seconds. It then heaves its riders skyward at a 90-degree angle (straight up) until it reaches a
height of 456 feet, over one and a half football fields, above the ground, before dropping another
418 feet. With that said, roller coasters are about more than just speed and height, they are about
the creativity of the designers that build them, each coaster having its own unique way of producing
intense thrills at a lesser risk than the average car ride. Roller coasters have evolved drastically over
the years, from their primitive beginnings as Russian ice slides, to the metal monsters of today.
Their combination of creativity and structural elements make them one of the purest forms of
architecture.

At first glance, a roller coaster is something like a passenger train. It consists of a series of
connected cars that move on tracks. But unlike a passenger train, a roller coaster has no engine or
power source of its own. For most of the ride, the train is moved by gravity and momentum. To
build up this momentum, you need to get the train to the top of the first hill or give it a powerful
launch. The traditional lifting mechanism is a long length of chain running up the hill under the
track. The chain is fastened in a loop, which is wound around a gear at the top of the hill and
another one at the bottom of the hill. The gear at the bottom of the hill is turned by a simple motor.
This turns the chain loop so that it continually moves up the hill like a long conveyer belt. The
coaster cars grip onto the chain with several chain dogs, sturdy hinged hooks. When the train rolls
to the bottom of the hill, the dogs catches onto the chain links. Once the chain dog is hooked, the
chain simply pulls the train to the top of the hill. At the summit, the chain dog is released and the
train starts its descent down the hill.

Roller coasters have a long, fascinating history. The direct ancestors of roller coasters were
monumental ice slides – long, steep wooden slides covered in ice, some as high as 70 feet – that
were popular in Russia in the 16th and 17th centuries. Riders shot down the slope in sleds made out
of wood or blocks of ice, crash-landing in a sand pile. Coaster historians diverge on the exact
evolution of these ice slides into actual rolling carts. The most widespread account is that a few
entrepreneurial Frenchmen imported the ice slide idea to France. The warmer climate of France
tended to melt the ice, so the French started building waxed slides instead, eventually adding
wheels to the sleds. In 1817, the Russes a Belleville (Russian Mountains of Belleville) became the
first roller coaster where the train was attached to the track (in this case, the train axle fit into a
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carved groove). The French continued to expand on this idea, coming up with more complex track
layouts, with multiple cars and all sorts of twists and turns.

In comparison to the world’s first roller coaster, there is perhaps an even greater debate over what
was America’s first true coaster. Many will say that it is Pennsylvania’s own Maunch Chunk-
Summit Hill and Switch Back Railroad. The Maunch Chunk Summit Hill and Switch Back
Railroad was originally America’s second railroad, and considered by many to be the greatest
coaster of all time. Located in the Lehigh valley, it was originally used to transport coal from the
top of Mount Pisgah to the bottom of Mount Jefferson, until Josiah White, a mining entrepreneur,
had the idea of turning it into a part-time thrill ride. Because of its immediate popularity, it soon
became strictly a passenger train. A steam engine would haul passengers to the top of the mountain,
before letting them coast back down, with speeds rumored to reach 100 miles per hour! The reason
that it was called a switch back railroad, a switch back track was located at the top – where the
steam engine would let the riders coast back down. This type of track featured a dead end where the
steam engine would detach its cars, allowing riders to coast down backwards. The railway went
through a couple of minor track changes and name changes over the years, but managed to last
from 1829 to 1937, over 100 years.

The coaster craze in America was just starting to build. The creation of the Switch Back Railway,
by La Marcus Thompson, gave roller coasters national attention. Originally built at New York’s
Coney Island in 1884, Switch Back Railways began popping up all over the country. The
popularity of these rides may puzzle the modern-day thrill seeker, due to the mild ride they gave in
comparison to the modern-day roller coaster. Guests would pay a nickel to wait in line up to five
hours just to go down a pair of side-by-side tracks with gradual hills that vehicles coasted down at a
top speed around six miles per hour. Regardless, Switchback Railways were very popular, and
sparked many people, including Thompson, to design coasters that were bigger and better.

The 1910s and 1920s were probably the best decade that the roller coaster has ever seen. The new
wave of technology, such as the “unstop wheels”, an arrangement that kept a coaster’s wheels to its
tracks by resisted high gravitational forces, showed coasters a realm of possibilities that has never
been seen before. In 1919, North America alone had about 1,500 roller coasters, a number that was
rising rampantly. Then, the Great Depression gave a crushing blow to amusement parks all over
America. As bad as it was, amusement parks had an optimistic look on the future in the late 1930s.
But, in 1942 roller coasters could already feel the effects of World War Two, as they were forced
into a shadow of neglect. Most, nearly all of America’s roller coasters were shut down. To this very
day, the number of roller coaster in America is just a very tiny fraction of the amount of roller
coasters in the 1920s.

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READING DAY 2 QUESTIONS

Questions 1-4

Answer the questions below.

A diagram that explains the mechanism and working principles of roller coaster.

Choose NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS AND/OR A NUMBER from the passage for each answer.

Traditional lifting mechanism

(1) Traditional roller coaster’s lifting force depends on a long time of 1_______ for climbing up, which is connected
firmly to a 2 _______ shape track

(2) there are both 3 _______ on the top and underneath the hill and it is powered by a 4 _______ when it takes a
turn.

Questions 5-10

Summary

Complete the following summary of the paragraphs of Reading Passage, using NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS from
the Reading Passage for each answer.

Write your answers in boxes 5-10 on your answer sheet.

The first roller coaster was perhaps originated from Russia which is wrapped up by 5 _______, which was
introduced into France, and it was modified to 6_______, because temperature there would 7 _______ the ice. This
time 8 _______were installed on the board.

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In America, the first roller coaster was said to appear in Pennsylvania, it was actually a railroad which was
designed to send 9 _______ between two mountains. Josiah White turned it into a thrill ride, it was also called
switch back track and a 10 _______ there allowed riders to slide downward back again.

Questions 11-14

Do the following statements agree with the information given in Reading Passage 3?

In boxes 11-14 on your answer sheet, write

YES if the statement is true

NO if the statement is false

NOT GIVEN if the information is not given in the passage

11 The most exiting roller coaster in the world is in New Jersey.

12 French added more innovation on Russian ice slide including both cars and tracks.

13 Switch Back Railways began to gain popularity since its first construction in New York.

14 The Great Depression affected amusement parks yet did not shake the significant role of US roller coasters in
the world.

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