Crazy Coasters!

Buckle up! The Jersey Devil Coaster is the world’s tallest, fastest, and longest single-rail coaster. That means its cars run on only one rail instead of the usual two. The ride begins when the car slowly climbs an eye-popping 13 stories with the help of a pulley—a rope or cable looped over a series of wheels. Then gravity takes over. Its downward pull sends riders plummeting down the giant hill and along the 3,000-foot track at nearly 60 miles per hour. Jersey Devil’s tight turns and three flips “make the coaster more exciting and intense,” says Marc Johnson, an engineer at Rocky Mountain Construction, which created the ride.

Better bring a towel for this ride! The Aquaman: Power Wave will launch riders backward and forward between the coaster’s twin towers. Each tower is 150 feet tall—that's as tall as five flagpoles stacked on top of each other. Then the ride ends with a massive splashdown!

Most coasters use an inclined plane to get their power: They start at the top of a high point and let gravity do the rest of the work. “Roller coasters just move by themselves—that’s something most people don’t realize,” says Anne-Marie Pendrill, a physicist at Lund University in Lund, Sweden, who specializes in roller coasters. But the Aquaman coaster gets an extra boost from magnet-powered motors that send it shooting along even faster.

You don’t need to know how to surf to ride this wave! This surf-themed coaster includes a “wave curl.” This feature sends riders upside-down and is meant to mimic the feeling of riding a monster ocean wave. Special harnesses hold riders in a standing position, just like surfers. That makes the experience even more realistic.

How do roller coasters go upside down without flying off the track? That’s due to a force called inertia that keeps objects moving along their current path. But most coasters, including Pipeline, have a backup just in case: “You have wheels on the side of the track, wheels on top, and wheels below,” explains Pendrill. This safety system ensures the coaster's car won’t leave the track. That way, there are no gnarly wipeouts!