John Allen

Coasters are being built in amazing numbers today. But, many do not remember a time when enthusiasts were happy if a handful of coasters were built in one year. Many of the top roller coaster historians such as Robert Cartmell and Scott Rutherford credit today's amazing coaster boom, called by many the "second golden age," to a mild-mannered man who created a watershed with one simple design. The man is John Allen of the Philadelphia Toboggan Company and the coaster his 1972 Racer. Although his coasters did not have the layouts of Herbert Schmeck or the uniqueness of John Miller or Frederick Church, they were the right coasters for the time. Allen's rides changed the way Americans thought about roller coasters and revived the coaster as both a popular attraction at amusement parks and proof that this ride could be a work of art. It is hard not to look at Six Flags over Georgia's Great American Scream Machine as dusk falls on the park and fall in love with the sight unfolding before your eyes.

John Allen on the station of the Great American Scream Machine while under construction. (Photo from Tim Onosko's Funland U.S.A.)

The period of roller coaster design between the opening of Disneyland and King's Island's Racer seventeen years later are some of the least-understood and least-researched time in roller coaster history. I wanted to delve deeper into this period and the one man whose designs kept the traditional wooden roller coaster alive were John Allen's. This is not to say people like Aurel Vaszin did not build some great rides. Rather, that Allen's designs, while they have been examined in the context of the early 1970's, can also give us a solid understanding of the amusement industry and coaster design for a twenty year period that has been seemingly shoved to the background. While Allen did not provide the immediate media frenzy that Disneyland (and later its Matterhorn) did, it is the opinion of this author that he contributed just as much, if not more, to the success of both the traditional and theme parks which has continued to this day.

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