I once planned- - or should I say daydreamed- a roller coaster for the beachfront amusement on my previous Galveston layout. Neither the real coaster nor the beachfront were in the same area as the railroads on the prototype. And with all the things I wanted to depict, the corner spot thought of for the coaster wasn't as close to the seawall as felt quite right. It's at the lower right in this plan. I went to Rosenberg Library for some photos of the coaster, which I do not have permission to post here. I did remember it from a family trip to Galveston when I was 10 years old. We parked on the street for about 2 minutes one night and watched the ride, but mother said it was too dangerous to ride. I do have a Sanborn's Fire Rating insurance map of the coaster. \ From the photos and plan, I drew up rough scale drawings and used them to lay out a cardboard mockup. I thought the name "Hurricane" would be good for a roller coaster in general, but NOT in Galveston whose 1900 hurricane was the deadliest storm in U S history, so I settled for "Speed Demon". Santa brought me a toy roller coaster when I was ten and it was great fun, but I did not think its motion was realistic. I do not believe ANY small scale roller coaster that depends on gravity and inertia can realistically "scale down the speed" and even less the variation in motion, accelerating on downgrades and decelerating uphill. Perhaps such a coaster could be modeled with an inconspicuous chain-pull mechanism embedded in the track, with sensors to cue a slow uphill climb to top of hill and then programmed acceleration and deceleration. Some NASA engineer could do it, but I had too many other things to do for the layout. I figured it would be great, if I ever got to it, to have a detailed but non-operating N scale wooden roller. I never got it. Just the mockup. And no room at all on my new Galveston layout. Sorry for getting anybody's hopes up.
