Balder

Roller coaster in Sweden
Watch the on-ride POV
Balder
An overview of Balder
Liseberg
Location Gothenburg, Västra Götaland, Sweden
Status Operating since 12 April 2003
Cost 100,000,000 SEK
Statistics
Manufacturer Intamin
Product Wooden Coaster (Prefabricated Track)
Builder Ingenieur-Holzbau Cordes
Designer / calculations Ing.-Büro Stengel GmbH
Type Wooden
Riders per train 30
Hourly capacity 1149
Propulsion Chain lift hill
Height 36 metres
Drop 30 metres
Top speed 90 km/h
Length 1070 metres
Inversions 0
Drop angle 70°
Duration 2:08
HELP

Balder is a prefabricated wooden roller coaster at Liseberg in Gothenburg, Västra Götaland, Sweden. A major international poll voted it the best wooden coaster in 2003 and 2005, mainly because of the high amount of airtime throughout the ride.

History

Balder under construction in 2002

The addition of Balder was announced in late 2001.[1]

Balder was closed for most of 2022 to allow it to undergo a refurbishment.[2] It reopened in October 2022.[3]

Theme

Elements

The ride is themed around the Scandinavian god of justice of the same name. Balder is the son of the gods Frigg and Odin. He could only be killed by a mistletoe arrow shot by his brother, the blind archer Hoder.

Design

Unlike "traditional" wooden roller coasters, Balder was prefabricated in a factory. Instead of trackers cutting, shaping and laying down the track, each piece of track was cut by using a laser. This means it was manufactured to a higher degree of precision than can be achieved by hand. The track snaps together easily and is made out of layers of wood that are tightly bonded together instead of nailed together by hand like a traditional wooden roller coaster. This makes the ride much smoother and speeds up construction, thus costing less as less man-hours are needed to construct the ride.

Trains

2 trains with 5 cars per train. In each car, riders are arranged 2 across in 3 rows, for a total of 30 riders per train.

References

  1. Liseberg Plans Woodie (Wayback Archive)
  2. "Houten achtbaan Balder blijft maanden gesloten voor renovatie in Liseberg".
  3. "Zweeds pretpark viert feest: houten achtbaan weer open na renovatie". Looopings. 2022-10-05. Retrieved 2022-10-12.

External links

  • Balder on the Roller Coaster DataBase.
Steepest wooden roller coaster
April 2003 - June 2006
Preceded by
Classic Coaster
Steepest wooden roller coaster
April 2003 - June 2006
Succeeded by
El Toro


Articles on Liseberg