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Charlotte Stonestreet
Managing Editor |
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Editor's Pick
Ultimate roller coaster gets ultimate chain
16 April 2019
The second longest roller coaster in the world, and the longest in Europe, has specified replacement chain from Renold for its two huge chain lift hills that take the coaster trains on a long climb to the thrilling heights of 102 and then 107 feet respectively.
The Ultimate coaster, at Lightwater Valley, near Ripon in Yorkshire, was opened in July 1991 after eighteen months of construction. At the time it was the longest roller coaster in the world, at 7,442 feet, just short of one-and-a-half miles long.
The original chain for the Ultimate’s two lift hills was designed and manufactured by Renold, and has operated trouble free from 1991 until 2017 when, during scheduled maintenance, the chain on the smaller of the two lift hills was replaced with Renold’s modern roller coaster chain.
An order to manufacture a replacement for the chain on the larger of the two lift hills was won by Renold in January 2019. The new 559 foot long, 6-inch pitch roller coaster chain, with a breaking load of 90Klb and Renold’s special, protective surface treatment, was manufactured by the same engineers that produced the original chains at Renold’s UK Chain Centre in Bredbury, Stockport, within just eight weeks.
