Southern California will soon have the tallest single-track roller coaster in the world
Adrenaline junkies will soon have a new way to get their hearts racing, their heads spinning and their guts twisted in knots at Six Flags Magic Mountain.
The theme park in Valencia has announced plans to build the world's tallest single-track coaster, which will race at 58 mph, climb a 131-foot tower and plunge down an 87-degree drop along a 3,300-foot track. The ride, Wonder Woman Flight of Courage, is set to open in the summer of 2022.
The ride, to be located in the park's six-acre DC Universe area, replaces the Green Lantern roller coaster. It is the park's 20th roller coaster and maintains Six Flags Magic Mountain's standing as the theme park with the most roller coasters in the world. A park in Poland, called Energylandia, is second in that ranking, with 18 coasters, according to Coasterpedia.net.
Like other theme parks in California, Six Flags Magic Mountain was closed for more than a year because of the COVID-19 pandemic. It reopened April 1 with a slew of new coronavirus safety protocols. On designated days when the park is expected to draw at least 10,000 visitors, all guests must show proof of being fully vaccinated or having a negative COVID-19 test within 72 hours of visiting the park. Free rapid COVID-19 tests are offered near the park entrance.
Single-rail roller coasters have become a popular trend at theme parks because they put riders in a single-file line in a vehicle that straddles the rail, enabling the coaster to make sharper twists and turns, said Darren Torr, president of Rocky Mountain Construction, the Idaho-based manufacturer of the roller coaster.
The single rail also makes the coaster less expensive and faster to install, he said.
"Everything is going to be more accentuated and allow us to come into the turns a little more aggressively," Torr said.
Coaster enthusiasts who have tried single-rail coasters agree.
"For a good-sized steel coaster, they are pretty twisty and turny," said Martin Lewison, a business administration professor and theme park expert at Farmingdale State College in New York. "They are definitely fun."
Six Flags Great Adventure in New Jersey opened a similar but slightly smaller single-rail roller coaster in June, called the Jersey Devil Coaster.
This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
