defunct VOL. 1
This week, we have a strange series of coincidences. August 16th is national rollercoaster day as well as my parents anniversary somehow, and my birthday on the 17th. But the 18th of this year specifically we had a couple of America’s most unique coasters shut down forever, experiments that lived longer than many expected.
2025
The higher budget of the two? Hollywood Rip Ride Rockit at Universal Studios Orlando. It’s decked out with every possible feature that the strange Maurer Sohne Rides has ever been able to offer (except a magnetic launch, but the tradeoff is a magnificent 167’ vertical lift), and this is by far the largest Maurer that the United States ever got, or will likely ever receive.
2016, operating in the heaviest rain it’s allowed to. Already known to be an uncomfortable ride to many, getting pelted in the face doesn’t help.
And it features the most complex on-board audio of all time, giving each rider a touchscreen to select from 30 official songs and many more secret ones (the best of which were both Muppets tracks). It’s no-joke themed to the aesthetics of mid-00s music videos and cheap MP3 players, making this the only Frutiger Metro themed rollercoaster as far as I know. The large banner that used to hang on the vertical lift showed this ride’s character far and wide. Subjectively ugly.
But strangely beautiful. Bumpy but extremely fun.
2019, Seguin, Texas
….and the lower budget of the closing two was 2015’s Switchback, a Texan family park’s attempt to reimagine the low budget/high thrill wooden coaster. Manufacturer Gravity Group has already been known for making some of the most compact wooden coasters ever made, with Switchback’s gimmick being a transfer track at the bottom of the first drop so that it can stall out and reuse most of the total track length for a backwards return run. The only closed loop of the “circuit” is between the station, the lift, and the drop back down to the station. Everything else is used twice in once cycle, check out how it operates if you want: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NNpjs7wo1cI
Guess it also set the record for steepest wooden rollercoaster at 87 degrees. This record might stand for a long time.
I was only able to make it to this strange suburb of San Antonio, Texas once, and bought one single ticket for the coaster…. but the park staff ended up being so generous I was able to not only ride their headlining rollercoaster 4 times and their frisbee flat ride upwards of 8…. got to keep the ticket anyway. This place ran on passion, would have loved living near this.
The ride is a sort of remake of 1884’s Switchback Railway, America’s first true purpose-built rollercoaster, and one that operated forwards and backwards in a similar sort of “shuttle” nature…. Over 100 years between the idea being attempted as far as I can tell.
Only 64’ tall but larger than life. If you asked me to guess after riding I’d call it closer to 90. Here’s a great pic for scale: https://rcdb.com/12392.htm#p=74404
2025. Rest in peace, giant experiments.
