Let's start from the very beginning. Many coaster and park aficionados will talk of what really began the journey to the modern roller coaster, being Russian Ice Slides. Bored Russians would take to city streets, either on hills or with massive ramps, and douse the winter roads with ice. Blocks of ice were attached with rope for people to hold onto something and were whisked away to the bottom where sand and hay slowed things down.
Once the grooved track took hold in Europe, coaster cars were rather simple, just a seat with some wheels beneath. In America, people had the thrilling prospect of careening down a mountainside rail line on mine carts with only a hand brake to slow down with.
The modern roller coaster came to light with LaMarcus Thompson, who patented many ideas that would be used on coasters you see today, such as multiple sets of wheels to hold the ride on the track, lap bars and lift mechanisms. Cars were mostly enclosed to provide some sort of safety, enough for early 20th century technology at least. Most wood coasters today use trains that aren't that far off from their early counterparts, but most having better seating and restraint equipment as well as computer technology.
The 1950's saw the coming of the steel coaster, which didn't start off with many new ideas. Most steel coaster running stock was similar to wood coasters at first. However, in the 1970's, looping coasters got the steel coaster started on a path that would make it the more innovative material to use. As such, the trains and restraints needed to change. While Schwarzkopf's Revolution at Six Flags Magic Mountain and most of his designs still only used lap bars, Arrow Dynamics' was using more twisted inversions such as corkscrews which put more lateral forces on the body. With such movement on the head, overhead restraints were created. Most looping coasters also started to bring more streamlined train designs to the forefront for better aerodynamic efficiency, and thus more speed. When Arrow broke the 200 ft mark with Magnum XL-200 at Cedar Point, it put both earlier ideas and newer ideas together, both to provide a comfortable ride and let the ride push some limits. Magnum only uses lap bar restraints and the car design is mostly like Arrow's early mine train coasters, but with larger wheels to keep up with going 70 mph and a streamlined body, the hyper coaster did all the things its conceivers dreamed and more.
Also in the 1980's, we saw two new types of rides, the suspended coaster and the stand up coaster.
Suspended coasters weren't all too new. One or two were tried in the early 1900's, but they hardly resembled a true roller coasters with dramatic drops and high speeds. Arrow brought back the idea when they were hired by Kings Island to build the Bat. The ride's steel track was held from the top on l-shaped supports while the trains hung beneath. To accentuate the ride's curves as well as an attempt to put less strain on riders, the cars acted like a pendulum, swinging on each curve. The cars were actually close to Arrow's looping designs, slightly less streamlined (or with a bat carving as Kings Island's ride had), but instead of track below, the track was above. While the Bat did fail due to under-engineering, the type did take hold later with designs like Busch Gardens Williamsburg's Big Bad Wolf, Cedar Point's Iron Dragon, and Six Flags Magic Mountain's Ninja.
The stand up coaster seemed like a simple design at first. Just design the same ways and let riders stand up. In fact, most early stand up coasters were just regular sit down coasters with new trains. Two examples of this are Six Flags St Louis' River King Mine Train and Worlds of Fun's Extremeroller. River King Mine Train was marked as the first stand up coaster ever. What was a regular mine train coaster recieved a pair of stand up trains, which seemed alright with its rather tame layout. Extremeroller was the first stand up coaster with inversions, being an Arrow looping coaster converted. Both ultimately failed as it was found out that special designing was needed to keep riders comfortable. The track would need different requirements than any old sit down coaster. Togo came to the forefront to fix that in introducing the first fully designed stand up coaster, Momonga Standing and Loop Coaster at Yomiuriland, a park in Japan. Togo's stand up first made its debut at Kings Island as King Cobra. The cars were basically floors on wheels with tall seating mechanisms with side mounting shoulder restraints as well as a lap restraint. Bicycle seats were used, which often didn't excite the guys riding, especially with a vertical loop and helix in the layout.
The 90's really saw coaster trains and seats take off in new ways. Bolliger and Mabillard were likely the forerunner at this. Their sit down and stand up coasters weren't all that new aside from being 4 across instead of 2, but it was their new seating style that took the world by storm. Arrow Dynamics had tried to put inversions into their suspended coaster to no avail. The swinging made it too dangerous with the potential of either whipping around too fast or stalling and falling to the side, both rather bleak outcomes. B&M made it simple; stop the swinging. Their new inverted coaster used a ski lift style seating while the cars were rigidly attached to the track. Being able to use inversions as well as letting riders' feet dangle made it a pretty thrilling prospect, and the design caught on like wildfire. B&M's design techniques in smooth transitions, straight from Schwarzkopf's repertoire, helped out as well.
The hyper coaster, or coasters above 200 ft, were gaining ground, but not much was done to train design for a while. The later 1990's and early 2000's saw B&M help out in another area. They took their 4 across design from their looping model and gave it a few new bells and whistles. They first took off the overhead restraints for roomy lap bars as well as raise the seats and tilt them back slightly. While there was still a floor, the view was more open, often described as 'stadium style seating' as well as more freedom for riders' feet. Couple that with heights surpassing 200 ft and speeds climbing to 80 mph and you got quite a ride on your hands. Intamin used the same ideas, though with lower seats and no sides, on their take on hyper coasters and later using them on giga coasters (coasters above 300 ft), one of the strengths of their first giga coaster, Millennium Force.
B&M took their hyper and inverted seating even further. First was to keep the raised seating, but cut off the floor. While overhead restraints were back in play, the sight of riders' feet nearly being grinded into hamburger at 60+ mph was too tempting to overlook, and thus, the floorless coaster was born.
When the suspended coaster was born, it was on the precedent on using coasters to recreate the sensation of flight. The inverted coaster took away the floor, but Vekoma and B&M wanted the real deal. Both had similar concepts, put the riders' bodies parallel with the track and hang them at some point, giving the feel the riders were flying like superheroes. Vekoma's required a bit more in the way of restraints, using a harness which is tightened by ride operators and a T-bar to lock in the lower body. Quite restrictive, but it ultimately worked. B&M had the T-bar, but used a simple upper body restraint. While it was using a steel arm instead of a softer harness like Vekoma's version, it allowed more upper body freedom. The plus side for B&M's is it starts where the ride is below the track whereas the Vekoma version requires more mechanics as the ride starts with track below the ground and the trains have to tilt up and down to load and unload.
The newest craze to take on the amusement park industry is sitting to the side of the track, not unlike the wings of an airplane. However, the idea started in its most whacked out form. While one would think to keep the seats stationary while attempting this at first, Arrow decided on a MUCH more twisted and psychotic way. X at Six Flags Magic Mountain seemed like it would be a simple 'wing coaster' as they are aptly called, but Arrow put in a new twist. Literally. The Arrow 4th Dimension ride with their 4 rail technology let the seats, while to the side of the cars, rotate forwards and backwards in 360 degrees worth of motion, not to mention they start backward. It wasn't until 2007 when Intamin made a true wing coaster with Furious Baco at PortAventura in Spain. The ride had fixed winged seating which highlighted the ride's lateral movements, which included a figure 8 layout and a mid-course barrel roll. B&M also got on the winged wagon in 2011 with Raptor at Gardaland in Italy, which was the spark that was needed to catapult them into fame, now with 7 known wing coasters built or planned as of this writing.
So where will coaster car and seating technology takes us next? Only the designers have any idea to that question.
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