ElloCoaster Poll 2019

 WANT TO SEE BEYOND THE TOP 25?

You can download all the results right here:

2019 Wood Results
2019 Steel Results

LOTS AND LOTS OF COASTERS!

In order to be included in the results, a coaster needed to have been ridden by at least 5% of the voters. A few of the brand new coasters as well as some in very off-the-beaten-path locations didn’t make the minimum rider cutoff and were not included in the results.
The 2019 results include 174 wood coasters and 921 steel coasters.

WANT TO RIDE ALL THE TOP 25 WOOD AND STEEL COASTERS?

You’ll need to visit 44 different parks in 15 different countries! Sweden’s Liseberg is the only park to boast both a wood and steel coaster in the Top 25.

VOTERS WERE SPREAD OUT ALL OVER THE WORLD

ELLOCOASTER VOTERS ARE WELL-TRAVELED

Considering that the ballots only contained the coasters that operated in 2019 and considering that the steel ballot ignored kiddie coasters, alpine coasters, butterflies, powered coasters, and other mass-produced small coasters, it’s really impressive that the average voter in the 2019 poll had 49 wood coasters and 213 steel coasters in their rankings.

15% of the voters have been on more than 100 wood coasters (most experienced voter: 167)
17% of the voters have been on more than 400 steel coasters (most experienced voter: 890)

HOLY COW, THOSE TOP FIVE STEEL COASTERS WERE CLOSE

WHAT IF WE COMBINED THE WOOD/STEEL RESULTS?

 You might wonder how the top wood coasters rank against the top steel coasters. You might imagine that combining the two polls and comparing win percentages would be the easiest way to do that, but hold on: it won’t work. The wood poll has 195 coasters and the steel poll has 2505 coasters. So let’s say that the #1 woodie and the #1 steelie each lost to just one coaster. Since the wood poll has far, far fewer head-to-head contests (38,000+ for wood, 6.2 million+ for steel), that loss on the wood ballot counts for a bigger percentage hit than the one on the steel ballot. This is why the top five steel coasters were so incredibly close in percentages, while the wood coaster percentages were farther apart. This is also why you can’t just merge the two poll results, since the wood and steel coasters would never compete directly against each other - which is kinda the whole point of our algorithm. If you absolutely insist on merging them just for grins, the #1 woodie slots in at #10 overall… and the #2 woodie shows up at #35!

WHAT WAS THE HIGHEST RANKING OF [COASTER TYPE]?

While wood coasters are somewhat similar in nature (although that is becoming less and less the case), steel coasters come in a huge variety of styles: traditional sit-on-top designs, looping coasters, inverted coasters, flying coasters, etc. Let’s have a look at how each of those types fared, as well as how older coasters fared against newer ones.

WOOD
Oldest wood coaster in the top 25: Phoenix (1948) or if you only count Phoenix from the year it opened at Knoebels, Coaster at Playland (1958) would be the oldest.
Newest wood coasters in the top 25: Mine Blower and Mystic Timbers (2017)

STEEL
Oldest steel coaster in the top 25: Nemesis (1994)
Newest steel coaster in the top 25: Untamed (2019)
Highest ranking non-looping steel: Taron, #2
Highest ranking looping steel: Steel Vengeance, #1
Highest ranking steel coaster with shoulder restraints: Lech Coaster, #9
Highest ranking inverted coaster: Nemesis, #17
Highest ranking flying coaster: Flying Dinosaur, #16
Highest ranking launched coaster: Taron, #2
Highest ranking stand-up coaster: Riddler’s Revenge, #216
Highest ranking shuttle (forward/backward) coaster: Mr Freeze Reverse Blast, #97
Highest ranking wing coaster: Flug der Dämonen, #91
Highest ranking 4D coaster: X2, #28
Highest ranking dive machine: Griffon, #69
Highest ranking floorless coaster: Superman Krypton Coaster, #68
Highest ranking spinning coaster: Time Traveler, #49
Highest ranking single-rail coaster: RailBlazer, #18
Highest ranking hyper coaster (drop of 200-299ft): Steel Vengeance, #1
Highest ranking giga coaster (drop of 300-399ft): Fury325, #5
Highest ranking strata coaster (drop of 400-499ft): Top Thrill Dragster, #42

WHICH COASTERS WERE RANKED #1 BY THE MOST VOTERS?

El Toro, ranked #1 on 27 ballots.
Lightning Rod, 26 ballots
Steel Vengeance, 25 ballots
Voyage, 17 ballots
Fury325, 16 ballots

Now you might be asking, “if more people voted El Toro as their #1 than Lightning Rod, wouldn’t that make El Toro place higher?” Not necessarily. Some of those people who ranked El Toro as their #1 ride haven’t yet ridden Lightning Rod, so just looking at how many #1 votes it gets doesn’t matter. You look instead at the voters who had ridden both of those coasters and see which one they preferred between the two. More of those voters preferred Lightning Rod. This is a major difference between the ElloCoaster poll and the “total points” polls. There’s a more complete explanation of the vote tabulation algorithm here.

NUMBER OF WOOD COASTERS IN THE TOP 25 BY COMPANY

With several of the Chinese wood coasters clearing the minimum rider threshold this year, The Gravity Group has a substantial presence in the Top 25.
Rocky Mountain Construction has only built four wood coasters (as of 2019), meaning that 100% of them made the Top 25.
Three of the four Intamin “plug and play” coasters made the Top 25. The fourth ranked at #28.
Great Coasters International claimed six of the Top 25 with their popular, twisted designs.

NUMBER OF STEEL COASTERS IN THE TOP 25 BY COMPANY

RMC and Intamin took home the most Top 25 awards with 8 coasters each, while B&M was close behind with five.

THANKS!

Thank you to all the voters who took the time to fill out their ballots and send them in.
Thanks to Grant Barker for coding the tabulator program and the ballot generator.
Thanks to Connie Yates for creating the graphics that go out to the winners.
And thanks to the Friends of ElloCoaster for helping spread the word about the poll.