The Steel Curtain Begins to Rise at Kennywood

© Kennywood

The start of vertical construction is always such an exciting time in roller coaster construction!  All the planning, designing, fabrication, and work on footings come together to make a brand new ride start to rise over its new home.

Such is the case at Kennywood, where this week The Steel Curtain, the park's enormous new roller coaster for 2019, start to be built.  A part of the all-new Steelers Country themed area, the custom designed steel roller coaster will eventually stand 220 feet tall.

© Kennywood

And to allow for that height, some seriously large supports are needed.  That's what we can see in these photos, released by the park, in the form of brilliant yellow base supports.  The size of the columns is staggering, just take a look at the person in this photo for comparison.  The Steel Curtain will have around 4,000 feet of track and hit a maximum speed of 75 miles per hour.

© Kennywood

Each day some additional supports were lifted into place, picking up the pace of construction.  The support structure for The Steel Curtain is quite complicated due to the ride's twisted layout.  In the course of the ride passengers will flip through nine inversions, a record for any coaster in North America.

Going up! First columns of Steel Curtain were installed this morning. #HereWeGo, indeed! pic.twitter.com/2qfaZsiW2S

— Kennywood Park (@Kenny_Kangaroo) November 7, 2018

Kennywood also shared this video of the very first support for the ride going into place.  It appears as though nearly all the footers for the coaster are in place, meaning that vertical construction can continue at a quick pace.  The ride is already visible from outside the park, and it's only going to grow taller, a lot taller!