Now that all of you know a bit about supports and track designs and methods used for coasters, let’s go in deeper and figure out what makes them go and what methods are the most efficient. Living in 2006, the amusement industry has become very different from what it was in the late 1990’s. Several new propulsion systems have been developed within the past 7 or 8 years.

Starting out with propulsion, there a quite a few ways to make a train go. Starting simple, with a lift hill and a launch system, all coasters have either one. Most roller coasters have a normal, traditional chain lift hill used to bring the train up to the highest point. Though this method seems common, but many coasters have different types of chains for the lift hill, depending on the weight and number of the cars that need to be pulled up the lift hill at once. Another way to get a coaster train up the hill is the rare spiral lift, in which an electric motor on train powers a cogwheel that catches on the rivets in the track. This system has anti-rollbacks, just as the normal one does. The only existing coaster in the US that uses this system is the Whizzer at Six Flags Great America. Within both of these systems, there are the normal anti-rollbacks along the track to ensure the train does not roll back (hence its name).

Another system of lifting a roller coaster train up its highest hill uses a cable and a cable-car which runs inside the track. Cable lifts are usually used for lift hills steeper the 30 degrees, but there are a couple of exceptions, which are the Gerstlauer Euro Fighter coasters with their 90-degree normal chain lift hills. Some common examples of sit down coasters that use cable lifts are Millennium Force, Expedition Ge-Force, Goliath at Walibi World, and Thunder Dolphin, all of which, are made by Intamin, the company that designed the system.

However, there are some inverted coasters that use a cable lift system, though they all are production models made by Vekoma. These coasters are the three Déjà Vu’s at Six Flags Magic Mountain, Six Flags over Georgia, and Six Flags Great America, and Stunt Fall at Warner Brothers Movie World in Madrid, Spain.

What makes these cable lift systems unique is that the cable car actually travels on a pair of separate rails, rather than inside the track. Also what makes this system unique is the fact that rather than the train getting “hooked” on the cable car, the cable clamps magnetically on fins located on the top of the train. This system is used to tow the train up a vertical spike, and then let it fall back down.

There is also another lift hill system used on an inverted coaster, in which the track is literally “pushed” up the lift, or in this case, a spiral lift hill. These coasters are Zamperla Flying coasters, only one of which exists in the US, and that coaster is The Flying Coaster, at Six Flags Elitch Gardens. There is another lift hill design being developed that is made by Vekoma, in which a coaster train rides up an elevator on a track section.