Currently only a few big rollercoasters are traveling from fair to fair (mostly in Europe / Germany), some of those are very well known within the rollercoasterscommunity, one perhaps a little less known.
In Germany we have now 3 Schwarzkopfcoasters on tour:
Alpina Bahn, Teststrecke and
Olympia Looping
Alpina Bahn , is a non-
looping coaster with a few
airtime moments and helixes. It has a nice familyfriendly theme over it with some bavarianstyle houses with big bears.
Teststrecke used to be called Laser at Dorney Park
Olympia Looping
is an amazing multilooper where the loopings are grouped as the sysmbol of the olympics, it is a very smooth but intens ride. It has a double restraintsystem and the one over the shoulders tends to go more down because of the
G-forces during the ride.
In the past there was also an inverted loopingcoaster traveling in Germany:
Eurostar. The tracks look as if it was been made by
B&M but it is in fact from Ginovanola /
Intamin and several other subcontractors. It left the German fairs many years ago because it had been sold to a russian compagny to operate it in Gorkypark Moscow, over 5 years ago it was decided to remove the rides from Gorkypark since then the Eurostar is in storage. I was able to ride it up to 2005 in Germany but it was not a very comfortable rideexpierence, every connection of the trackparts could be felt in the train, you could even hear it.
Rumors are going around each year that because of high costs other rollercoasters will stop traveling. Last year Olympia
Looping was in Vienna on the Prater for most of the time, and this year the indoorcoaster Hollenblitz went there. The Prater in Vienna is a combination of fixed rides and fairgroundrides, lost of different owners which means it has a pay per ride system.
But there is one more big ride, but much less known.
The
King Coaster in France, run by Karl Vancraeyenest. This rollercoaster can be found in Paris on the Foire du Trone (a 2 month fair starts end March untill end May) and in Saint Tropez.( from end June untill mid September)
Onride on King in Paris 2006, it has been built by Soquet and travels up to 100km/h , the layout has some similarities with the Alpina Bahn.
Perhaps in the near future all these big 5 coasters will stop traveling? I would find that a sad thing, these really look impressive and draw people to the fairs (even non-rides) that want to see it. What do you think? There is no place anymore for such big rides to be able to make any money when the keep on traveling? Did you ride any of these if so, what are your expierences?