Rider Driven Roller Coasters

05/09/2026

are still mostly very difficult to board and alight from without , if you are physically handicapped. These trains in are for now among the exceptions, making travel for people manageable beyond their local network. The floor is level with the and there is an extending .

An venue would be designed to make early alighting from trains a routine occurrence - because the whole point would be to enable withdrawal of consent for a given to be honoured 🤗. This means that every , whether on a or not, would be by , and . Each station would also have and other equipment to ease transfer from the vehicle to the platform. And is non negotiable for non inverted !

Both on ordinary and on on which you would be a , I am confident that Amy E Pohl would approve of built in level boarding.

05/09/2026

Techniquest is an , and educational centre in , , . It is the location of my earliest memories of interactive exhibits, at some point in the mid 1990s. My previous visit was as long ago as 2002 (safe inversions had been around just over half of the time that they have been now), when I still had a considerable proportion of childhood remaining.

My enjoyment of interactive exhibits has fortuitously converged with my underlying perception, dating back to only several years after my first visit to Techniquest, of the disturbing reality of amusement rides not being operated in a way that honours ongoing consent.

My vision is for future roller coasters to themselves be predominantly interactive experiences and therefore more forgiving. How better to dip one's toes into the sensations than to be able to control how fast you are descending? And to accelerate yourself into an from ground level?

There would be ( and ), and toggle galore at your seat, and dashboards to indicate where you are and what to do 😁.

05/09/2026

: Techniquest (Cardiff) has a mini replica cab of the recently introduced Stadler . Although there are no levers, the two ♥️ pushbuttons are of the type that I have in mind for " " commands in which animatronics, loud noises, darkness and pre programmed tracks would be paused on demand of riders of rides if overwhelmed. I would choose 🟡 instead 😁 for this purpose.

25/08/2026

Dolly Parton was not a fan of taking rides. If she had lived long enough to see my vision become reality, her reluctance might have been overcome because she would have been able to stop the train and get off if she could not cope.

Dolly Parton has owned Dollywood for 40 years, and in all that time, she has never gotten on a single ride in her own theme park.

She told Peachtree TV in 2023 that motion sickness has plagued her since childhood. “I used to get sick on the merry-go-round as a kid on the playground,” she said in a March 2026 speech at the park.

She also told Fox and Friends, “I’m afraid I will lose my hair, my shoes, my b***s may jump out. I don’t know. I’m afraid I will just fall apart if I try to get on one of those roller coasters.”

She even joked in a 2019 New York Times profile, “I’m gonna have some handsome man mess it up, I don’t want some ride doing it.”

But there might be one ride that finally breaks her streak. Dollywood is opening NightFlight Expedition later this year, a $50 million attraction that is part roller coaster and part water ride. Dolly said, “I usually don’t ride the rides, but this one sounds so magical, I might just check that one out.”

After 40 years of watching from the sidelines, Dolly Parton might finally get on a ride at her own park. And honestly, we need cameras rolling if she does.

16/08/2026

The day after 2024 at @ I filmed and - the AI generated images to show driving controls on came later.

16/08/2026

The day after 2024 I visited - not to ride but to record video to articulate how amusement rides could overcome their most significant problem - lack of ongoing .

08/08/2026

Turntables would be common in my vision for roller coaster networks at future amusement venues - they would be mainly used to park trains in roundhouse sidings, where the riders would board.

07/08/2026

The ( ) test seat at in April 2026. Not quite how I would imagine a seat to be laid out on a roller coaster vehicle in which the riders were in control. The itself is not suitable for inversions. More leg room would be needed than is provided here.

For a themed roller network, this seat and restraint design could work. There is a on the same park, but what I would imagine would require its own venue, with ride time booked as slots instead of turning up and waiting in queues.

16/07/2026

More compatible with a larger proportion of the world's population - because you can slow down if you are overwhelmed 😀