The Ultimate

The Ultimate is a steel roller coaster at Lightwater Valley amusement park, near the small cathedral city of Ripon, in North Yorkshire, England. In 1991, it took the record of longest roller coaster in the world from The Beast at Kings Island. Following the opening of Steel Dragon 2000 in Japan, it became the second longest roller coaster in the world but still remained the longest in Europe.History and design"The Ultimate" represented an investment of £5.2 million and was the concept of the park's original owner, Robert Staveley. Construction work began in early 1990 and took eighteen months to complete before the opening to the public on 17 July 1991.While "The Ultimate" was designed by Big Country Motioneering, they were not involved with the completion of the project. Lightwater Valley's owner got engineers from British Rail to oversee the construction. A few sections of track on the second half of the ride were redesigned to change their banking. The track was made by "Tubular Engineering".Set within 44acre of woodland, "The Ultimate" takes passengers on a 7 minute 34 second ride along of tubular steel track (an average of 11.2mph), with two lift hills of 102and respectively which rest on Canadian redwood trestles. It currently runs two trains on a normal day, each of which can hold a maximum of 38 passengers.