Flip Flap Railway was the name of a looping wooden roller coaster which operated for a number of years at Paul Boyton’s Sea Lion Park on Coney Island in Brooklyn, New York. The coaster, which opened in 1895, was one of the first looping roller coasters to operate in North America. It was also notable for its engineering as well as the extreme G-forces that this engineering inflicted on riders.
Like the earlier centrifugal railways in Europe, Flip Flap Railway was notorious for the extreme g-forces that it produced in its riders. The circular nature of the coaster’s loop, as well as its relatively small diameter of 7.6 meters (25 ft), meant that it could produce forces of approximately 12 g0 (120 m/s2). This caused riders to often experience discomfort and neck injuries from whiplash. Modern looping roller coasters use teardrop-shaped loops to greatly reduce these g-forces.
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