page_title: History of the roller coaster
section_title: The rise of steel
hierarchical_section_title: History of the roller coaster / History / The rise of steel
caption_attribution_description: w:Matterhorn Bobsleds w:Disneyland 2000 Not the best coaster ever. Still in Disney Land. Taken by Ellen Levy Finch (User:Elf)
context_page_description: Roller coaster amusement rides have origins back to ice slides constructed in 18th-century Russia. Early technology featured sleds or wheeled carts that were sent down hills of snow reinforced by wooden supports. The technology evolved in the 19th century to feature railroad track using wheeled cars that were securely locked to the track. Newer innovations emerged in the early 20th century with side friction and underfriction technologies to allow for greater speeds and sharper turns. By the mid-to-late 20th century, these elements intensified with the introduction of steel roller coaster designs and the ability for them to invert riders.
context_section_description: In 1959, the Disneyland theme park introduced a new design breakthrough in roller coasters with the Matterhorn Bobsleds. This was the first roller coaster to use a tubular steel track. Unlike conventional wooden rails, which are generally formed using steel strips mounted on laminated wood, tubular steel can be bent in any direction, which allows designers to incorporate loops, corkscrews, and many other maneuvers into their designs. Most modern roller coasters are made of steel, although wooden roller coasters are still being built along with hybrids of steel and wood.
  In 1975 the first modern-day roller coaster to perform an inverting element opened: Corkscrew, located at Knott's Berry Farm in Buena Park, California. In 1976 the vertical loop made a permanent comeback with the Great American Revolution at Magic Mountain in Valencia, California.
caption: Matterhorn Bobsleds, the world's first tubular steel roller coaster.
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