Floorless Coaster

According to Walter Bolliger, development of the Floorless Coaster began between 1995 and 1996.^[1] In 1999, the world's first Floorless Coaster opened at Six Flags Great Adventure as Medusa. With the success of Medusa, SeaWorld, Cedar Fair, Six Flags, and independent parks, Janfusun Fancyworld, Parque Warner Madrid, Tivoli Gardens, and Ocean Park Hong Kong have built other coasters of this model at their parks. B&M has built 13 Floorless Coasters from the ground up, with Dominator at Kings Dominion being the only one relocated to another park.^[2] They have also converted three of their stand-up roller coasters to Floorless Coasters: Rougarou at Cedar Point, Patriot at California's Great America, and Firebird at Six Flags America.

The design of a Floorless Coaster has one main difference from traditional steel roller coasters around the world: there is no floor under the seats.^[3] While a train is parked in the station, a floor is used only for loading and unloading purposes. Because the front row has nothing in front of it to stop riders from walking over the edge of the station, a gate is placed in front of the train to prevent this from happening. Once all the over-the-shoulder restraints are locked, the floor separates into several pieces and retracts underneath the station. The gate then opens, allowing the train to move forward. When the train returns to the station, the floor is brought back up and the gate is closed for the next group of riders to load and unload.^[4] Aside from the station, Floorless Coasters have similar layouts to B&M's sit-down coasters.^[2][5]

Bolliger & Mabillard has built thirteen Floorless Coasters from the ground up, with three additional that were converted from stand-up roller coasters. The roller coasters are listed in order of opening dates.

Name	Park	Country	Inversions	Opened	Status
Medusa Formerly Bizarro	Six Flags Great Adventure	United States	7	2 April 1999	Operating	[6]
Superman: Krypton Coaster	Six Flags Fiesta Texas	United States	6	11 March 2000	Operating	[7]
Medusa	Six Flags Discovery Kingdom	United States	7	18 March 2000	Operating	[8]
Kraken	SeaWorld Orlando	United States	7	1 June 2000	Operating	[9]
Insane Speed	Janfusun Fancyworld	Taiwan	4	2001	Operating	[10]
Superman: La Atracción de Acero	Parque Warner Madrid	Spain	7	6 April 2002	Operating	[11]
Batman: The Dark Knight	Six Flags New England	United States	5	20 April 2002	Operating	[12]
Scream	Six Flags Magic Mountain	United States	7	12 April 2003	Operating	[13]
Dæmonen	Tivoli Gardens	Denmark	3	16 April 2004	Operating	[14]
Hydra the Revenge	Dorney Park & Wildwater Kingdom	United States	7	7 May 2005	Operating	[15]
Dominator Formerly Batman: Knight Flight	Kings Dominion Geauga Lake	United States	5	24 May 2008 5 May 2000	Operating Closed 16 September 2007	[16]
Hair Raiser	Ocean Park Hong Kong	Hong Kong	4	8 December 2011	Operating	[17]
Nitro	Adlabs Imagica	India	5	October 2013	Operating	[18]
Rougarou[a]	Cedar Point	United States	4	9 May 2015	Operating	[19]
Patriot[a]	California's Great America	United States	2	25 March 2017	Operating	[20]
Firebird[a]	Six Flags America	United States	2	17 May 2019	Operating	[21]

Note: Although nearly all Dive Coasters (such as SheiKra, Griffon, Valravn and Yukon Striker) feature floorless trains, they are not considered Floorless Coasters.^[22][23]

Maurer Söhne, a German roller coaster and steel manufacturer, has developed their own version of the Floorless Coaster called the X-Car Floorless. The car is the same as the original X-Car with the only difference being that there is no floor during the ride.^[24][25] As of 2019, no X-Car Floorless roller coasters have been manufactured.^[24]

• Dive Coaster, a type of roller coaster also designed by Bolliger & Mabillard, that feature floorless trains on some models.