Working at a roller coaster manufacturer, I can tell you that the height is measured from the tallest to the lowest point of the ride. But every manufacturer and park is free to choose the height they want to for their marketing.

I'm gay too buddy

Trying to figure out the height of a coaster is insanely complicated. Most coasters work with the tallest point to the ground, however, like you mentioned terrain coasters would only be a few feet so then we measure by the height of the drop but that introduces coasters like Orion that stand 287’ tall but have a drop of 300’ technically making it not a giga. Also, coasters like phantoms revenge that have a larger drop later make it way more complicated however, I would continue to use the largest drop method

The whole debate about orions height also is annoying like yeah it’s a giga

I’ve had this same question for so long💀💀

highest point to station? I feel like that's the best measurement, right?

For a ride like Apollo how is not considered 210 feet tall when the bottom of the drop to the top of the lift is literally over 200 feet?

This is why it should be measured from the highest point to the lowest point of the coaster. For Hyperia it is easy, as those trims before the run are on the ground.

I always just assumed the logical way to measure is height = tallest point relative to starting position IE the station. This can be different than the drop height as terrain or going underground can change that. Scientifically it's the measurement dealing with potential energy vs kinetic energy that can figure out true height numbers because otherwise the coasters simply wouldn't work. Park management just likes to lie to say they have the biggest tallest and fastest new thing around, they know the real height numbers they just lie about it.

I measure them to the earth’s core.

6:05 you could argue that the lift is not the biggest distance imagine a coaster where the station is halfway between high and low the coaster now drops to 3/4 of the height does some elements then half of the total height now the coaster is 1/4 of the height difrence the station is at 1/2 and now the coaster makes some elements while preserving speed going to the lowest point now going back up with some elements to the station now the lift is not as heigh as the height difrence

height should always be highest point - lowest point. does this make any mountain coasters stratas? so be it! i don't care '^^ tunnels shouldnt change more than a few meters, and if they do, they probably deserve to count cus it aint easy to build a deep tunnel and do coaster maintenance on it

Just make coasters 200feet hypercoasters and 200 feet drops with hyper drops

It's should be a priority kind of system. It should always be the tallest point of the lift hill. Unless the coaster hugs the terrain for the majority of the layout, then it's top point of the lift to the lowest point (But you can't call it that tall, you now have to call it like elevation change)

Biggest drop doesn’t nessicarily mean first

ORION IS A GIGA COASTER

One of the lesser talked about negatives about Kingda Ka closing is that I can no longer dab on the Brits with "Congrats on finally building a roller coaster that's half as tall as our tallest coaster!"

i just think that they are measured from the bottom of the station to the top of the highest point

i feel like building a roller coaster thats built on a sandy beach would be an absolute nightmare + its safe to say that the xcelerator is a dead model

1:33 look at that kink in the right running rail. Quality Arrow jank right there.

What’s wrong with just measuring the distance between the highest and lowest point of the track. It doesn’t matter what element it is. Height doesn’t say anything about the biggest drop or how high it is from the ground. Just how much verticality you scale when riding.

3:55 Isn´t that 13m height Number on Nemesis just the height difference of the Lift? I mean, the Station on that thing isn´t the lowest point of the ride anyway. The real question with Nemesis is a different one anyway: Where did they get that bloody 31.7m drop number from? Because honestly, I highly doubt that Nemesis has any drop on it that comes even in the ballpark of that number. To me it always felt as if that´s the total difference between the lowest and highest point of the ride. Like Bandit at Yomiuriland, that thing is listed with a Height of 51m, a drop of who knows what because nobody seems to care and a Elevation change of 78m

One other thing I remember is that there was actually a court battle over the issue of what the tallest wooden coaster was, since both Texas Giant (Six Flags Over Texas) and Hercules (Dorney Park) were claiming the tallest wooden coaster at one point. Texas Giant had the greater height over land, while Hercules had a shorter height over land but a larger drop, thanks to use of the terrain letting the drop go into a depression. I wanna say the battle resolved with Texas Giant officially having the _tallest_ coaster at the time, while Hercules had the coaster with the largest drop.

Looking into measuring roller coaster height is a door into madness. In frankly just about any system you could come up with to do it, you could find a real life example, or if there's not build an example in Planet Coaster or No Limits, to where it doesn't feel "right" to measure it's height like that. Also gets especially fun when you get into the "what's a hyper coaster" discussion. Like Magnum XL 200 doesn't have a 200ft drop whilst Apollo's Chariot does but doesn't reach 200ft above the ground. Have fun thinking about that one!

Another instance of analyzing marketing claims driving someone insane.

Simple. There's height and there's drop. They're listed separately. Magnum XL is 205' tall with a 194' drop. Phantoms Revenge is 160' tall with a 230' drop. Biggest hill and biggest drop have never been confusing, they don't need to be the same hill and I've been riding for 35 years since I was 12.

I think that the height should change depending on the ride.

5:17 What about PowderKeg?

When building a coaster, you can actually see the height of track pieces you are building if enabled in settings. And it gives you options such as from sea level or from ground level. And for irl coasters, I think the height compared to ground level should be the height, and when going into specifics other numbers can be added for info.

The height is measured by, when you’re at the highest point and you look down to the ground and say “omg we’re so high up”. Measure from there to the ground lol

And then you have rides like Phantom's Revenge at Kennywood, where the tallest drop isn't the first, but the second, because the first drop descends to ground level, while the second drop descends into a ravine! (It's officially a hyper coaster because of that second drop.)

I've always wondered this myself. Glad someone else is out there stressing about the truly important problems we face. LOL

this is a really interesting point to bring up that i never really thought of! I'd possibly measure the height as the difference from the highest point of the ride to the lowest non-underground point maybe? that's probably the best thing i can come up with

As I see it, this is the reason we have different stats for drop height and (structural) height. Imo height (aka structural height) should be counted as the distance between the track and the ground when that value is the largest, and drop height should be measured as the distance between the track at the top and bottom of the drop. Also why are you using Coasterpedia for stats, out of interest? It's a publically editable wiki and is not the most comprehensive, I would highly recommend using RCDB instead. It's the absolute best website for roller coaster stats - all the Coasterpedia stats are just people taking from RCDB. RCDB also has 12,000+ coasters while Coasterpedia has maybe a few hundred.

To be honest I'd say Flamingo Land could possibly get an RMC Hyper but not a Hyper Hybrid, a Hyper Raptor, as they started making bigger Raptors, it's possible they could make one above 200 foot and as the smaller ones are as cheap as 4 million, you could probably get a hyper one for under 12 million if you were lucky.

You: “cedar fair” Subtitles: “seed affair”

RMC , Mack, B&M, GCI, Intamin. In that order. Mack launches get a hard time. I think they see the launch a way of turning potential energy into kinetic.

The development of Mack since „blue fire“ is nuts. Seems like they are just getting started.

dude blackpool was so pissed off they sent protesters to thorpe park and a protesting van to the park. but all n all SUCK IT BLACKPOOL!!!

Also Voltrons launches are pretty good especially the backwards launch and the one forwards right after it. The beyond vertical one is also pretty good so they can do punchy launches if they really want to

I like that you gave RMC/Schilke their credit for advancing layout design. I hardly ever hear that mentioned but Hyperia's pre-lift and over/under bank element is all RMC inspired imo.

Tbf to thorpe it wouldn't be that difficult for them to find the space if they really wanted it to make a huge coaster. The area behind swarm island has nothing on it and closing rumba rapids would give a massive space to play with.

Alton towers could legit build fake trees around the giga. Just to get the drop in. To easy

Good video, I hope for more content like this!

also one small thing about chessingon, it's also under a treeline restriction

Yo is that Alton Towers and RMC tease real?? I’ve never seen it before.

Hyperia was built because of the potential threat of the London Reaort. So when Universal goes ahead, watch this space. Because other parks will need something big to keep people coming back.

Fantasy Island could also break the height record, The Odyssey was planned to be 270ft tall instead of the 170 it is today, so that shows they can and are willing to go high. I just don't think they have the funds though....

I know you make stealth have a bigger launch and have a taller top hat and try and make that top hat like 300 feet

If you think about it they built oblivion in to a hole which was expensive any deeper could be more expensive so if they wanted to they could