Big Thunder Mountain Railroad is a rollicking runaway train of a roller coaster that rushes through the gold-mining town of Tumbleweed in the Frontierland area at Magic Kingdom theme park.

Big Thunder Mountain Railroad: FreeDisneyWorld.info

A ride on Big Thunder Mountain Railroad provides mild but wild thrills to those aboard—from big kids and teens to adults not up for the really big thrills found on the other 2 Magic Kingdom “mountain” attractions: Space Mountain and Splash Mountain.

But this ain’t no kiddie coaster either. Climb aboard, partners, and you’ll be warned to “hang onto your hats and glasses ’cause this here’s the wildest ride in the wilderness.”

Listen to the Big Thunder Mountain Railroad wheels chug-chug, then ratchet and race across seemingly rickety tracks. Swoop around sweeping turns and tear up rolling hills that dip or drop into canyons and caverns, slip under a booming waterfall or swish through the ribs of a dinosaur skeleton.

The steam whistle blows-another curve is coming up Better hold on!

And keep your eyes open, there are spectacular sights through the Big Thunder Mountain Railroad gold-mining camp and cactus-scattered desertscape. Be on a lookout for critters. A bleating billy goat guards a mountain peak. A family of opossums hangs overhead at the entrance to a cave. Bats, chickens and donkeys complete the Old Western-themed scenes.

Thar’s Gold in the Big Thunder Mine!

Or there once was, so goes the legend. Gold hounds made a mad rush to the 2.5-acre Big Thunder Mountain and settled in the town of Tumbleweed. Everything was fine as cream gravy until a flash flood washed over the mountain and ruined any chances of mining more gold. But this didn’t dampen anyone’s spirits.

Dismissing the fact the Tumbleweed saloon’s in danger of sinking, the townsfolk gather in their favorite watering hole to cash in their current riches for a raucously good time before heading for drier digs.

Wait, not everyone’s here. Have you seen Cousin Ed? There he goes! Clad in his longjohns, he’s caught up in the flood and is spinning through the waters while sitting in his bathtub. Doesn’t he look surprised!

The other big surprise for the town is that the Big Thunder Mountain Railroad trains that transported the gold ore from mining sites to the town have developed a mind of their own and they’re running loose on the tracks—climb aboard!

For some added fun, take a ride in the daylight, then again under the night sky. You might catch something you didn’t see or hear with each trip you take on Big Thunder Mountain Railroad.

Guest Policies

• Expectant mothers should not ride.
• For safety, you should be in good health and free from high blood pressure, heart, back or neck problems, motion sickness or other conditions that could be aggravated by this adventure.
• Due to the nature of the experience, service animals are not permitted on this attraction.
• Guests must transfer from their wheelchair, motorized scooter or ECV to board the ride vehicle.
• Guests with young children may take turns experiencing attractions. See a Cast Member for additional information.

Big Thunder Mountain Railroad: FreeDisneyWorld.info

Big Thunder Mountain Railroad (also Big Thunder Mountain) is a relatively mild indoor/outdoor mine train roller coaster common in “Magic Kingdom”-style Disney theme parks worldwide. Big Thunder Mountain Railroad is also the name of the fictional rail line depicted in the attraction.

Theme

Though the details of the backstory vary from park to park, all follow the same general story arcs. Some time in the late 1800s, gold was discovered on Big Thunder Mountain in the American southwest. Overnight, the small mining town of Tumbleweed (Thunder Mesa at Disneyland Paris) was established and the Tumbleweed Mining Company staked their claim. Mining was prosperous and an extensive line of mine trains were set up to transport the ore. Unbeknownst to the settlers, the Mountain was a sacred spot to local Native Americans and was cursed. Before long, the settlers’ desecration of the mountain caused a great tragedy, (terrible earthquake or flash flood, depending on the park) which befell the mines and town and they were abandoned. Some time later, the locomotives were found to be racing around the mountain on their own, without engineers or a crew. The Big Thunder Mountain Railroad was founded in the old mining camp to allow tourists to take rides on the possessed trains.

Appropriately, the station buildings are themed as the abandoned offices of a mining company from the 1890s. The mountain itself is themed to the red rock formations of the American Southwest. Disneyland’s rockwork design is based on the hoodoos of Bryce Canyon National Park in Utah. All later versions are based on the rising buttes that are located in Utah/Arizona’s Monument Valley. Special care was taken by the Imagineers to make it appear that the rocks were there originally, and the track was built around them, unlike early mine rides which sculpted the rocks around the tracks. The action of the ride takes place completely in the sagging, rotting tunnels of the mountain. In contrast to most steel roller coasters where the thrills come from the perception of flying through open air, the thrills on Big Thunder Mountain are meant to come from the perceived instability of the mine and its threats of collapse. Sound effects of typical locomotive operation are piped into the surrounding scenery to add realism to guests viewing the ride from observation platforms, including the steam whistle sounding, even though there is no whistle displayed on the locomotives.

History

Big Thunder Mountain Railroad was designed by Imagineer Tony Baxter and ride design engineer Bill Watkins. The concept came from Baxter’s work on fellow Imagineer Marc Davis’s Western River Expedition, a western-themed pavilion planned for the Magic Kingdom, designed to look like an enormous plateau and contain many rides, including a runaway train roller coaster. As the full pavilion was deemed too expensive in light of the 1973 construction and opening of Pirates of the Caribbean, Baxter proposed severing the mine train and building it alone.

The coaster project was put on hold again in 1974 as resources and personnel were diverted to work on the new Space Mountain attraction for Tomorrowland, but this delay may have ultimately produced a smoother ride as the use of computers in attraction design was just beginning when the project was resumed. Big Thunder Mountain was the first Disney ride to utilize computer-aided design.

The attraction first opened at Disneyland in 1979, with the Magic Kingdom’s larger version in Florida opening in 1980. At Disneyland, a scaled-down western town sits adjacent to the queuing lines and tracks returning to station. A saloon, hotel, assayer’s office and mercantile appear among the buildings. This is the village of Rainbow Ridge, which used to overlook the loading platform of the sedate Mine Train through Nature’s Wonderland. Big Thunder Mountain Railroad was built on the land the Mine Train used to occupy. Many of the animal animatronics throughout the attraction were originally from previous attraction. Further allusions to the Mine Train ride include the Rainbow Caverns (glowing pools of water by the first lift hill) and precariously balanced rocks in the third lift. Beside these physical homages, Big Thunder Mountain Railroad owes one more thing to the Mine Train through Nature’s Wonderland; its name. Big Thunder was originally the name of an enormous waterfall the train passed on the tour. Little Thunder was located nearby.

All later versions of the ride would drop the word Railroad in favor of the name Big Thunder Mountain. Tokyo Disneyland’s Big Thunder, identical to the Magic Kingdom’s, opened in 1987, five years after the park opening. Disneyland Paris rethought the attraction, creating a completely new track design and accompanying structure. The European version, called ‘Thunder Mesa,’ takes the form of a large island in the center of the Rivers of the Far West, accessed from its riverside station by tunnels underneath the water. This version opened with the park in 1992. Hong Kong Disneyland does not have a Big Thunder Mountain Railroad attraction (or a western-themed Frontierland, for that matter).

Accidents

* A man was killed on the Disneyland incarnation in a derailment on September 5, 2003, purportedly as a result of neglected ride maintenance. The court case surrounding this was settled out of court in 2005 and a scholarship fund was set up at Brooks College, a Southern California university, in the victim’s name for aspiring animators as he was seeking a career in animation.

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