Sad news to report out of Mexico, but the historic Montana Rusa wooden roller coaster
at La Feria de Chapultepec in Mexico City is closing.
And unfortunately, it will be demolished.
In this video, I’ll talk about the coaster’s removal and provide my review of the coaster.
Montana Rusa was the heart and soul of La Feria de Chapultepec.
For the most part, this amusement park felt like a permanent fun fair, but there was one
notable exception in Montana Rusa.
This hulking, Mobius wooden roller coaster dominated the park’s skyline.
You could see it from anywhere in the park.
In fact, it took up almost half the park by itself.
La Feria de Chapultepec had been standing but not operating ever since a fatal accident
occurred on Quimera on September 28, 2019.
The root cause of the accident was determined to be poor maintenance by the park and the
investigation determined several other maintenance issues with La Feria in general.
The park had been operated by Ventura Entertainment ever since 2015, but the Mexican government
revoked the park’s operating license after their investigation.
The park had sat idle for the past year while the government sought out a new operator.
Industry leaders such as Six Flags, Cedar Fair, and SeaWorld were contacted, but the
covid-19 pandemic delayed the park’s sale.
In late November 2020, a new operator was identified in Thor Urbana Capital.
Looking at the portfolio for Thor Urbana Capital, this will be their first amusement park.
The company currently operates a mix of entertainment, retail, and hotel properties.
But unfortunately this announcement was bitter sweet.
In the plans Thor Urbana Capital released for their revitalized La Feria, Montana Rusa
was nowhere to be found and it was shared that Montana Rusa would be demolished due
to the coaster’s deteriorated condition.
And this was sad to hear for sure.
Montana Rusa may not have been an elite wooden roller coaster anymore, but it was a historically
significant ride.
The coaster was designed by the National Amusement Device Company and when it opened in 1964,
it was the world’s tallest roller coaster standing 110 feet tall or 33.5 meters tall.
But the coaster was more notable for two reasons.
One, it was the last remaining wooden roller coaster in Mexico.
Two, it was a rare Mobius wooden roller coaster.
This meant that the coaster consisted of two continuous tracks that combined to form a
single circuit or a Mobius loop.
Montana Rusa was one of three remaining Mobius loop wooden roller coasters along with Kennywood’s
Racer and Blackpool Pleasure Beach’s Grand National.
Because La Feria de Chapultepec was literally located in the heart of downtown Mexico City,
the coaster was a thing of legend.
It was arguably the most famous roller coaster in all of Mexico.
However, the coaster’s historical significance wasn’t enough to save it from being targeted
for demolition.
Even before the Quimera accident and fallout from the subsequent investigation, it was
clear Montana Rusa had seen better days.
Many who rode the coaster over the past decade found the coaster quite rough.
But even worse, the park no longer raced Montana Rusa.
The rumor I heard was reduce wear and tear on the structure by running less trains and
when they did need to run two trains, they wouldn’t pass over the same section of track
simultaneously.
Considering Montana Rusa has 4000 feet of track or 1219 meters of track on each side,
Montana Rusa’s combined track length exceeded that of even the Beast at Kings Island.
That sheer length combined with the coaster’s age and Mexico City’s demanding climate,
could not have made this coaster easy to maintain.
But unfortunately, it sounds like the damage was done during Ventura Entertainment’s
ownership of the park.
I visited La Feria twice, once in 2018 and once in 2019.
I have a separate review for the park as a whole, but in short I did not have the best
experiences at this park.
In my first visit, many rides opened late.
Montana Rusa included.
And in my second visit, almost every major ride was closed.
Montana Rusa included.
As a result, I only got one ride on Montana Rusa, but I consider myself very fortunate
to have done so.
What should have been a capacity monster with its dual track design was a capacity nightmare.
The coaster usually ran just one train and had painfully slow dispatches.
Combined with a station to station time of almost 4.5 minutes, you can see how this coaster’s
line would move at a snail’s pace.
Thankfully, I got the second to back row for my one ride.
I was able to avoid the wheel seat and get the back car, where I heard this coaster had
some nice airtime.
And one other operational oddity, the park did not allow me to wear my glasses on the
coaster.
That in itself is a nuisance, but not unique to La Feria.
What was weird is that they wouldn’t allow me to keep my glasses on the ride platform.
They told me to hold them in my hand.
I found that sort of weird because they were a lot less secure in my hand than they were
around my head with a glasses strap.
In terms of the trains themselves, they felt similar to three bench PTCs.
They were extremely well padded (something I’d later be thankful for) and they had
individual ratcheting lap bars.
I don’t recall the operators at La Feria pushing the lap bar down very far, so I had
a decent amount of room.
Montana Rusa began with one of the worst pre-lifts of any coaster.
It wasn’t rough, just painstakingly slow and boring.
It took roughly a minute once you were dispatched to reach the lift hill.
But it set the stage for the lift hill, which was equally as slow.
It took another minute to ascend the 110 foot tall or 33.5 meter tall lift.
But thankfully the lift at least gives awesome views of Mexico City, La Feria, and the dense
structure of Montana Rusa itself.
But the snoozefest continues with Montana Rusa’s first drop.
It’s extremely shallow and probably no more than 20-25 feet or 6-8 meters in size.
It goes without saying you won’t get any airtime on this drop.
That’s followed by an extremely slow turnaround reminiscent of the flat turn on the Grizzly
coasters at Kings Dominion and California’s Great America.
But at least it gives another opportunity to take in Mexico City’s impressive skyline.
I believe the second drop is the ride’s largest at 80 feet or 24 meters.
But unfortunately, it’s fairly shallow so it didn’t offer any airtime.
At least it finally gave the coaster some speed.
It just took 2.5 minutes to do so.
This was also the first high-speed valley of the coaster and while it was certainly
bumpy, it wasn’t unbearable.
In the row I experienced Montana Rusa, I’d say the roughness was on par with the Coney
Island Cyclone.
Although, I suspect it would have been worse in the very back on a wheel seat.
At this point, I was wondering if the reports I heard about this coaster having airtime
were incorrect.
But then the third drop happened.
And holy guacamole did that catch me off-guard.
This drop had a tight crest and was super steep, so I was thrown over it in the back
car and treated to some serious ejector airtime.
It was probably the best single airtime moment in all of Mexico.
Yes, it was even better than any single moment on Medusa or Superman.
And the valley was equally as rough as the prior one.
All of the following valleys on this coaster were no rougher than this, presumably since
they were taken with less speed.
While I never rode this coaster up front, I suspect front row riders would have gotten
an abrupt pop of airtime as well considering the sharpness of the crest and the speed at
which you took this hill.
Montana Rusa then climbed up another sizable hill.
I suspect this hill probably would have given a little pop of airtime for front row riders.
This hill is followed by a shallow little dip much like the first drop that offers no
airtime for those in the back.
You then rise up into the second turnaround and are trimmed ever so slightly by a brake.
And I found it sort of funny this wooden coaster that was crawling at this point had a trim
brake installed yet the Schwarzkopf looper next door had its brake runs removed and was
allowed to haul through its course far faster than designed.
Montana Rusa then lulled me into a false sense of security.
The drop off the second turnaround was another shallow drop devoid of airtime.
And the following camelback was another hill that had a shallow little dip on the other
side.
So at this point, I was thinking Montana Rusa was a one trick pony.
But then it threw two more steep drops at me that I couldn’t see coming.
These two drops are tucked deep within the coaster’s structure and both gave strong
pops of ejector airtime in the back.
Montana Rusa then rose up into the third turnaround and I suspect this is another hill that gave
an abrupt pop of airtime if you were riding up front.
If you watch the POV I’m showing on the screen, you can hear the upstop wheels entering
this hill.
You then charged around another flat turnaround, except this one had more speed than the first
two so it offered a pinch of laterals.
Then came the finale.
The drop off the turnaround gave a faint pop of airtime in the back since you took it with
a decent head of speed.
The following bunny hill was unfortunately too shallow to offer any airtime, but the
final hill offered one last pop of airtime in the back.
You then rose up into the brake run and took another 45-60 seconds to reach the station.
In the end, the Montana Rusa I experienced was a very uneven experience.
The coaster had three drops with some crazy ejector airtime, but this coaster’s pacing
was putrid.
Most of the ride was spent slowly lumbering about traveling down slow drops or glacial
turnarounds.
Had the coaster been racing, these slow spots wouldn’t have been as much of an issue but
the version of Montana Rusa that I experienced had a lot of dead spots.
So what would I rate Montana Rusa?
I would give this coaster a 6.5 out of 10.
The third drop and two before the third turnaround give amazing ejector airtime in the back.
That’s for sure.
But outside of an ok finale, the rest of the ride was really dull and uneventful.
Thankfully the coaster wasn’t all that rough, at least in the second to back, so ultimately
I’d say it was a slightly above average wooden roller coaster albeit one of the worst
paced ones out there.
It always pains me to see a historic roller coaster bite the dust.
And if you told me a year ago Quimera would be saved and Montana Rusa would be scrapped,
I would have had a hard time believing you.
But if one ride was going to be saved from La Feria, Quimera is objectively the far better
coaster.
I wish there was a way for Montana Rusa to be saved considering its historical significance,
but that doesn’t appear likely as crews have already been seen around the coaster.
And the new site plans show no traces of Montana Rusa and instead show at least one or two
coasters coming to La Feria, but they appear to be of a much smaller scale.
So those are my thoughts on Montana Rusa at La Feria de Chapultepec.
What are your thoughts about this coaster’s removal?
Did you ever ride it?
I would love to hear what you think down in the comments.
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Thanks for watching!