Manhattan Express Roller Coaster

While recently in Las Vegas on business and being the coaster enthusiast that I am, I took the opportunity to ride two of the three roller coasters that are located on the strip. The Manhattan Express is one such coaster and can be found at the New York, New York hotel and casino. At $14 a ride, it is pricey however if you are one who keeps an active list of all coasters ever ridden, it is a necessary expense to “add another” coaster to the overall count.

Prior to riding the Manhattan Express, I did not have high expectations for this or any other coaster located on the Las Vegas strip. Receiving a Twitter message from a friend a day earlier of how the coaster beat his body up did not improve my expectations. Nevertheless, I was going to ride it anyway.

After I paid the $14, I found no wait to board the train with the exception of the fact that they needed to put at least 10 people on a train that only holds 16 riders in order to send it out. This was not a good sign of things to come as you should be able to send a train out empty and know it will be able to run the length of the track with no issues. (More later on why they needed almost full trains in order for the coaster to run.)

After enough people arrived, we boarded. I sat in the front so I could experience a frontal view of the 144′ initial drop. As I engaged the restraining system, I already knew that this was going to be a rough ride. They use a lap bar that pushes down on your legs which is fine but then shoulder restraints that push down on your shoulders having padded extensions on each side of your head (see photo below).

The result is that your head bobs back and forth between the pads during the ride, giving you a pretty good beating. This is almost the same experience one may have on most stand-up coasters which I might add are not typically comfortable to ride.

While the initial drop was decent, the train rode pretty rough on the track. The loop itself was anything but smooth as you felt you were actually thrown into it. From there the ride just got worse and almost stopped at one point (the reason why they need almost full trains). The ending was so boring it almost put me to sleep. Overall a boring track design, horrible restraining system and just a really lame ride for how much it beats your body up.

Manhattan Express was originally built in 1997 by Togo. It stands at 203′ with an initial drop of 144′ and is followed by 2 inversions – a loop and a dive loop. Trains reach speeds up to 67 mph and track length is 4777 feet.

In August 2006, the original Togo trains were replaced by new trains built by Premier Rides, which makes me wonder how bad the first trains were. Also Premier Rides added a magnetic brake system in 2004.

I give the ride a thumbs down as one of the worst steel coasters I have ever ridden. Unless you are into coaster counts as I am, save your $14 for the slot machines.

Even if they replaced the restraints to a traditional over-the-shoulder system, it would not remedy the boring track design and the almost “put you to sleep” ending. They should at the very least lower the price so riders are only beat up rather than being robbed at the same time.