Which part of a roller coaster is the fastest?

So many wrong or incomplete answers. Here's the scoop. Although the entire train is going the same speed, the front and the back do not go over the same part of the track at the exact same speed, nor does a rider experience the same forces at any particular point during the ride. For the first hill, the back of the train is generally going the fastest because by then, there's the least friction on the train slowing it down. You're coming off of the chain lift (or other mechanism) and now you can "go." The front part of the car gets to pull the back part of the train down. The front part of the train was slowed down because the back part was still attached to the chain or whatever was moving the car up the hill. After that point, then the front is generally going faster since the train continues to lose a little speed as the friction of the track slows the coaster down nominally. So whether you're at the top of a hill or bottom of a drop, the front is slightly faster. However, you ...  more