ROLLER COASTERS ACTUALLY DATE WAY BACK

Shuttle coasters, like Mr. Freeze, the new roller coaster at Six Flags St. Louis, got their start at tiny Fairyland Park in Kansas City.

A shuttle coaster is technical talk for a roller coaster that returns in reverse. Technically, Mr. Freeze is a shuttle loop, because the coaster does a loop in the middle of the ride.

In the early 1950s guests at Fairyland Park rode the Teeter Dips, a ride modeled after a teeter totter. A single, four-passenger car rolled from one end of the track and then back again. The track was mounted on a fulcrum, just like a teeter totter.

"I think it's quite interesting that Mr. Freeze can trace its lineage back to Missouri," said Paul L. Ruben, North American editor of Park World, an international magazine for the amusement park industry.

Ruben knows roller coasters. He has been riding coasters for 55 years and has experienced close to 500 different coasters around the world. He also makes it his business to share a little coaster history whenever possible.

The roller coaster is an All-American thrill ride, right? Wrong. The first roller coaster dates back 400 years to St. Petersburg, Russia. A savvy showman discovered that people would pay money to ride wooden sleds down an ice-covered ramp.

Catherine the Great enjoyed the ride so much she demanded that tiny wheels be added to the sled so she could continue coasting in the summer.

In North America, mules were the first roller coaster riders. Mules were used to haul coal cars to the top of Mount Pisgah in Pennsylvania. Coal was loaded into all the cars but one. At the end of the day, mules were loaded into that last car, and down the hill they went.

It didn't take long before the mules flatly refused to walk down the hill. Miners discovered that indeed the ride down was pretty exciting.

When the coal mine closed in 1873, the railway was expanded and converted to passenger use.

Riders traveled an 18-mile, figure-eight track at speeds up to 60 mph. They sat on park benches in the coal cars without so much as a seat belt.

The Mauch Chunk Railway closed in 1938. No one was ever injured.

The heyday of roller coasters was from 1900 through 1920s. About 1,500 were built in North America and twice that many worldwide. But after the Depression, roller coasters slowly lost favor.

Old coasters were torn down. Few new ones were built. In 1979, only 145 coasters were operating in North America.

But times are changing.

"It's a renaissance for roller coasters," Ruben said.

This year 31 new roller coasters are being unveiled, bringing the total number in operation close to 340 for North America.

"I think roller coasters are off the endangered species list," Ruben said.

The new roller coasters compete for bragging rights, to be the highest, fastest or most technologically advanced. Mr. Freeze currently holds that honor.

"They are bigger, faster and wilder than ever," Ruben said. "It's wonderful times."