The Trump Administration recently announced a new 25% tariff on all imported steel that is set to go into effect on March 12, 2025. A steel roller coaster uses a significant amount of steel, in fact Steel Curtain at Kennywood is reported to weigh an astounding 2.67 million pounds with 113 pieces of track, 1,162 total pieces and 21,470 bolts! The largest single track piece of track weighed 15,000 pounds. A tariff wouldn’t just affect steel coasters though, but also affect flat rides and even drop towers. So let’s talk about the potential impact of a steel tariff on the theme park industry and what we can expect going forward. We won’t get into politics or the potential economic reasons for tariffs, just how it might affect new ride costs in the future.

Steel Curtain at Kennywood is reported to weigh an astounding 2.67 million pounds!

A tariff is essentially a fee or a tax that is paid on an imported product. This bill is the responsibility of the company importing the goods and either paid by the end customer or almost always passed on to the end customer. Steel is a commodity, meaning product A is essentially indistinguishable from product B of the same type and grade (think gas prices being pretty similar station to station in a town), A tariff usually has the effect of raising the average price of steel the same amount as the tariff, so it can be concluded that the average price of steel will probably increase about 25% in price, at least in the short term.

So what would a tariff mean for a ride like Steel Curtain? During the time it was built the average price for cold rolled steel (a smooth and good quality grade of carbon steel) was about $60/CWT (hundredweight or 100 pounds) or about $0.60/pound (today’s number is pretty similar). If we multiply this cost by 2.67 million pound weight of the coaster (assuming it’s mostly steel) we get a steel cost of $1.6 million. Of course a roller coaster will probably use many different grades and types of steel and aluminum, some costing more and some less, but this should be a good average. This is just raw steel which must be cut, machined, welded, painted, etc. prior to use, so still lots of work for the coaster company to do.

However, it doesn’t stop there with track and structure as the ride has an 8.37 million pound foundation that will be steel reinforced with different percentage weights of steel depending upon use. Some concrete has only 1% steel by weight, but support columns (common in a coaster can include ) can include almost 6%. If we assume an average of 4% that another 335,000 pounds or $200,000. We can add another $24,000 in steel in the trains as they can weigh almost 40,000 pounds with most of that being metal. Finally, we’ll just round up to $2 million total to include miscellaneous items like fencing, queue line rails, mechanical parts, lighting, etc. We’ll also assume that the tariff doesn’t affect things like concrete prices, motors or electronics, however no doubt these would see some impact too.

The total cost of Steel Curtain was reported to be $20 million, meaning raw steel made up about 10% of the cost. If we use a time machine and go back to 2019, the steel cost with a 25% tariff would have gone from approximately $2 million to $2.5 million increasing the project cost by $500,000 or about 2.5%. This isn’t earth shattering, but it isn’t pocket change either. An increase like this may not cancel a project, put perhaps it would cause a park to cut back on theming, buy one less train or take other cost savings measures to make up the difference.

The good news is that all our new for 2025 and even most new for 2026 coasters are probably just fine in that the steel is probably already purchased and fabrication already underway. Economic conditions can change rapidly and the tariffs could be quickly rescinded or some greater economic force such as inflation, a tax cut, a recession, a pandemic, etc. could dwarf the economic effects of the tariffs too.

Steel is an important part of roller coasters, even wooden ones, and it often finds its way into the ride name like The Steel Curtain, Steel Eel, Steel Vengeance and many more. I don’t work for a coaster company, but I do work in industrial machinery, so although I feel pretty confident in talking about this subject, if anyone has more accurate numbers of the average steel price in a coaster I’d love to see them. Overall though, let’s hope that the tariffs are either short lived or that if they do continue that the disruption to employees and fans of the theme park industry will be minimal.