What is: Steel Dragon 2000
Steel Dragon 2000 is a steel giga coaster located at Nagashima Spa Land, in Nagashima, Japan.
The ride originally opened to the public as the world’s tallest, fastest and longest
full-circuit roller coaster, featuring the world’s longest roller coaster drop.
Though it no longer holds all of these records, the ride still remains the longest roller
coaster in the world, measuring close to 2.5km, 1.5 miles in length.
Steel Dragon 2000 debuted to the public in the midst of the “Coaster Wars” - a period
in time which saw theme parks across the world battle to create world record breaking roller coasters.
The wars officially began in 1989 with the debut of Magnum XL-200 at Cedar Point.
Magnum became the world’s first roller coaster to break the 200ft 61m height barrier, being
dubbed a hyper coaster in the process.
This quickly sparked other parks to do the same.
Blackpool Pleasure Beach opened the Big One, a roller coaster standing 213ft 65m high, in 1994.
Then 2 years later, Fujiyama at Fuji-Q Highland became the world’s tallest roller coaster,
measuring 259ft 79m high.
And it was these attractions that caused other parks to construct non-record breaking hyper
coasters of their own; including the ride that would go on to inspire Steel Dragon 2000,
Mamba at Worlds of Fun.
In the years prior to the new millenium, Nagashima Spa Land’s general manager accompanied the
park’s president to the United States to test out roller coasters and determine what
would be a good fit for their park.
The pair visited Cedar Point, as well as a few other regional amusement parks, including
Worlds of Fun in Kansas City Missouri.
Upon riding Mamba, the park’s Morgan Hyper coaster, Nagashima Spa Land’s president was impressed.
At that moment in time, he knew he wanted a similar ride at his theme park.
The pair approached Morgan with the desire to build a roller coaster very similar to
Mamba, but 100ft 30m taller - their intention being to construct the world’s tallest roller coaster.
The president of Morgan quickly welcomed the project, as many aspects of the ride’s design
were already known.
From this point on, the companies got to work.
Steel Dragon 2000 was actually designed by 17 in-house engineers and 6 external ones.
Steve Okamoto, designer of Mamba, used a piece of software he had created previously to produce
the rides track path in a 3-D perspective.
This helped the team overcome the additional challenges faced during the designing process,
including that of making the ride earthquake resistant.
Nagashima, and most of Japan, is an earthquake prone region.
To combat this, Steel Dragon 2000 was built using 1.5 times the amount of steel normally
required for a roller coaster of this huge scale.
As stated previously, the park’s president originally wanted a version of Mamba 100ft taller.
In the initial plans, this equated to a roller coaster standing 94m 308ft tall.
However, because the number 4 is considered unlucky in Japanese culture, changes were
made to the ride’s height, eventually causing it to be increased to 97m 318ft.
Little did the designers know at the time, this was a critical decision.
Thousands of miles away, at roughly the same point in time, another theme park project
was aiming to be the world’s tallest.
Cedar Point, one of the parks the Nagashima Spa Land general manager and president visited,
was hoping to regain their title.
Cedar Point partnered with Intamin to construct the world’s tallest roller coaster.
As they’d done so before with Magnum XL-200, they created a whole new definition of height
for their newest attraction.
And in May of 2000 they debuted Millennium Force, the world’s first giga coaster.
Measuring a record breaking 310ft 94m high, their creation towered above the rest.
The world’s tallest roller coaster was once again back at Cedar Point, like it was at
the start of the ‘Coaster Wars’ - but not for long.
What they didn’t know was that another record breaking ride would open to guests only several months later.
Originally destined to be shorter than Millennium Force, the increased height of Steel Dragon
2000 meant that it would become the world’s tallest roller coaster.
And, on the 1st of August 2000 it did just that.
Designed by Steve Okamoto and costing Nagashima Spa Land 5.5 Billion Yen, approximately 52
Million USD at the time; the ride opened to great fanfare.
In fact, the park held a Shinto religious blessing for their newest attraction on the
day of its debut, which was followed by first rides by park officials and the design team.
Breaking a total of four world records, the ride’s debut was met with a fantastic reception.
During the first two months of operation over 500,000 guests got to experience the world’s
tallest roller coaster.
It seemed that three years worth of construction, which saw the assembly over 280 track segments
and 300 supports, was worth it.
At this point, you might be wondering where the name “Steel Dragon 2000” came from.
If you break it down it’s quite simple.
The ride is a steel roller coaster, hence ‘Steel’; and opened to visitors in the
year 2000, hence ‘2000’.
The ‘Dragon’ aspect of the title also relates to the year.
2000 was the year of the Dragon in Eastern culture, completing the ride’s full name:
Steel Dragon 2000.
But what does a ride on this steel dragon actually look like?
Once guests have navigated the queue line, they enter the station building.
Here, they board one of three trains.
Originally, these trains were manufactured by Morgan, each featuring 6 cars.
These cars sat riders in 3 rows of 2, leading to a total of 36 guests per train.
However, in 2013, the trains were replaced with brand new ones from Bolliger and Mabillard, B&M.
These trains drastically changed the ride experience.
Where Morgan’s design consisted of box-like cars, B&M produced a much more open design.
Guests are raised away from the trains chassis, with a clamshell lap bar featuring shin guards
to hold them in.
This exposes riders to the elements, making Steel Dragon 2000 feel taller, faster and
generally more intense.
Because of the ride’s huge scale, the trains were also produced with large 46cm 18 inch
diameter wheels to reduce the heat generated via friction with the track; and a front car
nose that has been flared upwards to deflect wind.
Overall, B&M’s design consists of 7 cars, each of which seat riders in 2 rows of 2.
This leads to a total of 28 visitors per train.
Once they’ve boarded, the vehicles are dispatched from the station building, completing a right
hand turn in the process.
They then engage with the lift hill and begin the colossal climb.
Part way through the ascent, the cars engage with a 2nd separate chain lift mechanism.
The weight of a single chain spanning the entire hill was initially too great.
To combat this, it was split in two, causing the entire lift hill to utilise two separate
chain lift segments.
Nevertheless, once riders reach the top, they tower 97m 318ft above the ground, giving them
fantastic views of their surroundings.
But, not for long, as guests suddenly find themselves staring down the huge, originally
record breaking, 93.5m 307ft drop.
Seconds later, the trains plummet down the first descent, at the maximum vertical angle
of 68 degrees.
One 300ft fall later, guests reach the top speed of 153kmh 95mph, a world record at the
time of opening.
Immediately after, the trains begin to climb the first 77m 252ft tall hill.
This is followed by a second large drop, and a second climb.
What’s interesting is the first two of Steel Dragon’s hills both measure over 61m 200ft
tall, making them taller than most roller coasters around the globe.
After the 2nd climb, riders bank right and complete a long curved drop.
This transitions directly into a drawn out upward helix to the right, followed by a second
helix to the left.
Guests continue the helix, traversing a wide low-to-the-ground left hand turn.
A small dip and s-bank later and the trains ascend into the mid-course brake run.
During the first half of the ride, the average speed visitors travel at is a ridiculous 90kph 55mph.
But the 2nd half is where the fun begins.
Guests navigate not one, not two, but six back-to-back airtime hills, through a series of tunnels.
The experience comes to end with one last climb into the final brake run.
During the entire ride, visitors traverse 2479m 8133ft of track.
Despite being the world’s longest roller coaster even to this day, the trains complete
the majority of the course during a 86 second ride, measured from the moment guests leave
the lift hill to when they hit the final brake run.
The ridiculous amount of speed carried through the course means that riders fly through a
world record amount of track remarkably quickly.
Sadly, Steel Dragon 2000 hasn’t been thrilling guests every year since it’s debut.
On the 23rd of August 2003 the ride suffered an incident with its wheel assembly.
Reports state that the roller coaster lost a wheel from the front car, leading to its temporary closure.
Steel Dragon 2000 remained dormant until the 2nd of September 2006, in which it reopened to guests.
As for its original records, three of the four have been taken during its lifetime.
Dodonpa at Fuji-Q Highland opened to the public in 2001 as the world’s fastest roller coaster,
launching guests from 0 to 172kmh 107mph in 1.8 seconds.
While Cedar Point’s Top Thrill Dragster debuted in 2003 as the world’s tallest roller
coaster, featuring the longest drop on any roller coaster around the globe.
Measuring 130m 420ft high, and featuring a drop of 120m 400ft, the ride also stole the
speed record from Dodonpa, as it accelerates riders from 0 to 190kmh 120mph in 4 seconds.
When compared to newer giga coasters also, Steel Dragon 2000 is unlike the rest.
While most focus on speed and heavily banked turns, instead of large airtime hills; Steel
Dragon does the opposite.
It closely resembles the old school hyper coaster layouts of its time, and because of
this, currently stands as the only giga coaster to feature a large airtime hill directly after the first drop.
But is this a bad thing?
Would you like to see parks build more ride’s of this scale with a distinct focus on airtime?
Let us know in the comments down below.
Thank you for watching, and we’ll see you all next time.
A big thanks goes to OurWorlds for letting us use their awesome POV, I’ll link the
full video, as well as the other videos used in this one, in the description below.