{"id":60550,"date":"2021-09-02T16:41:41","date_gmt":"2021-09-02T20:41:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.themainemag.com\/?p=60550"},"modified":"2021-09-20T09:10:36","modified_gmt":"2021-09-20T13:10:36","slug":"the-legacy-of-new-englands-tallest-wooden-roller-coaster","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.themainemag.com\/the-legacy-of-new-englands-tallest-wooden-roller-coaster\/","title":{"rendered":"The Legacy of New England\u2019s Tallest Wooden Roller Coaster"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Engineers working on the remaining “lift hill,” circa 1998 (courtesy of Cory Cormier).<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Few mornings pass in which Cory Cormier does not find himself one hundred feet in the air, balancing atop the wooden tracks of the Excalibur, New England\u2019s tallest and longest wooden roller coaster. He describes it as a nice half-mile hike\u2014Excalibur\u2019s length is 2,700 feet long, with its highest peak reaching 100 feet, the steepest drop at 82. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cNothing runs here that hasn\u2019t been looked at,\u201d says Cormier. \u201cAnd a broken fastener is what you\u2019re looking for.\u201d He tells me that maybe every day, one or two of these hot-dipped galvanized steel nuts or bolts will snap, but it\u2019s not a big deal. Because of the nature of the ride\u2014wood\u2014the roller coaster moves; it bends, it flexes, and things break. \u201cYou have a fastener every foot; if you lose one, they\u2019re engineered so that if something happens there is more than enough support and hardware that it\u2019s perfectly safe.\u201d Cormier calculates that Excalibur, one of the main attractions at Saco\u2019s Funtown Splashtown USA amusement park, located behind Route 1\u2019s car dealerships and one-story motels, gets anywhere north of 150,000 to 200,000 riders every season. During a normal summer, the park is typically open from 10 a.m. to 9 p.m., seven days a week, from Mother\u2019s Day weekend through Labor Day. The Excalibur runs a cycle every five to six minutes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Cormier is 42 and vigilant, with silvering hair and youthful eyes, a look that allows him to appear simultaneously like a dad and a kid. He\u2019s a third-generation descendant of the founder of the amusement park, Ken Cormier, who passed away in Celebration, Florida, in 2013 after launching the Funtown venture more than 50 years ago. Ken and his wife, Violet, bought a plot of land and set up a drive-in hamburger stand named the Marvel Drive-In. Little by little, the Cormiers began adding onto the joint\u2014miniature golf, batting cages, go-karts. They soon realized that rides made a lot more money than hamburgers, and along came the SkySlides, Swinging Gyms, Zipper, Tilt-a-Whirl, the Scrambler, bumper cars, and a gift shop. <\/p>\n\n\n\n