CoasterForce has given us one of the best (and longest) inside looks at how roller coaster track is manufactured. Most roller coaster manufacturers are very secretive about how they bend their steel pipes into twisting track segments. Rocky Mountain Construction has proven to be very open in the past, they answer fans questions on Facebook all the time, so it’s not surprising to see they are the company that opened their doors like this.
In the first video, owner and CEO Fred Grubb speaks about all their upcoming projects, the history of the company and his collaboration with legendary designer Alan Shilke.
What a lot of coaster enthusiasts don’t realize is that not only do you have to make all the steel track pieces, but you also have to design and build all the jigs and fixtures required to hold the steel while it is welded together. Someone has to program all the CNC and plasma machines too.
RMC’s track starts out as giant 8 by 40 foot sheets of steel. Then it gets cut out on a giant, automatic plasma cutting machine. They try to use as much of the steel sheet as possible. The steel scrap not used gets recycled.
As a quality check, each piece of track is connected to the mating pieces on both ends to check the joints before getting shipped out to the construction site.
- Top left : Wildfire
- Top right : Lightning Rod
- Bottom left : The Joker
- Bottom right : Storm Chaser
Confused about the difference between traditional wood coaster track, topper track, and the Iron Horse I-box track? Here’s a simple graphic I made in a CAD program to show you the differences. Not included is RMC’s new T-box style track. It’s like two of the rails for the Iron Horse track fixed back to back, where the car’s wheels would be on the outside instead of the inside.
Thanks to CoasterForce and Rocky Mountain Construction for giving us a great look at how our favorite rides are made into reality. What other coaster manufacturers would you like to get this kind of access to?
So far, RMC has worked wonders with their topper track and I-Box concepts. I believe RMC’s newest concept is tentatively being called T-Rex, which is in the testing stages. The new steel track design is completely different from their other 2 designs. Not sure of a time line on when we could see the T-Rex concept thrilling coaster enthusiasts… even though it looks like it ought to be very good.