Never mine for gold on an ancient Indian ground. It’s Horror Movie 101. Somehow, the employees of Big Thunder Mining Company never got the memo, probably because the company’s owner, Barnabas T. Bullion, is pig-headed and entitled. His stubbornness causes an entire town to pay the price. Let’s go behind the ride to figure out where everything went wrong for the unfortunate souls who once lived at Big Thunder Mountain Railroad.
The experience: twin man-made mountains thousands of miles apart
The trick: picking an anti-pirate ride and building a mountain for it
Image: DisneyIn some alterative timeline, you’d never ride Big Thunder Mountain Railroad. Instead, you’d take a journey on Western River Expedition, which Imagineers projected as the Magic Kingdom response to Pirates of the Caribbean. Remember that the original plans for Walt Disney World oddly didn’t feature the globally-renowned attraction. Once guests clamored for it, Disney adapted.
During this chaotic time that lasted several years, legendary Disney employee Tony Baxter developed a different ride concept. He pitched a mine train ride that could solve two issues at once. At Disneyland, an attraction called Mine Train Through Nature’s Wonderland had collapsed in popularity to the point that park planners downgraded it from E ticket to D ticket. Disney could repurpose this land for a mine train attraction.
At Magic Kingdom, the park had an open space in desperate need of an attraction. They’d intentionally not filled in the area around Frontierland in anticipation of later development. A man-made mountain would ably fill this void. The early designs for Big Thunder Mountain Railroad could satisfy pressing needs at Disney’s only two theme parks at the time.
Image: DisneySince Disneyland had a head start, the ride was fast-tracked and eventually opened there first. This park already had developed the space whereas Magic Kingdom started from scratch. Baxter took inspiration from several locations, most notably Bryce Canyon, Utah. He wanted to create a western-themed attraction that had a nice mix of mountainous terrain and landscaping style.
Baxter and his team built a masterful man-made mountain at Magic Kingdom. They didn’t use rock formations exclusively, either. When you look at the façade, you’re seeing 6,500 tons of steel, 4,000 gallons of paint, and 4,675 tons of a special mud Disney crafted just for this. There are also 90,000 gallons of water circulating throughout the area. It’s an impressive structure that soars 104 feet in the air.
The experience: a ghost town that feels like people used to live there
The trick: creating an immersive experience through Imagineered theming
Image: DisneyBuilding the mountain represented step one of Big Thunder Mountain Railroad. Populating the area with the right items would make it feel lived in. That concept is critical to the runaway roller coaster attraction. The underlying premise of the ride is remarkably deep and nuanced.
The setting here is the 19th century gold rush. The idea is that everyone loses their mind when money is involved. While the various versions of Big Thunder Mountain Railroad all have distinct settings – Disneyland’s town is Rainbow Ridge while Magic Kingdom is Tumbleweed – they share a commonality. Someone discovered that there is gold in them thar hills, and they want to mine it. The problem is that the mountain hosting the gold is super-duper-mega cursed. Anyone who tries to take loot winds up regretting it.
An industrialist named Barnabas T. Bullion has a symbolic name that he feels entitles him to all gold on the planet. He sends a team of gold diggers to Big Thunder Mountain to mine its treasures. This causes a dramatic act of God – earthquake at Disneyland, flash flood at Magic Kingdom – to wipe out the town in the middle of the mining process. The space is now an abandoned ghost town that still shows all the signs of its previous business enterprise.
Image: DisneyTo create the illusion, Baxter and his team sought items that someone would find at a mining excavation. Some of the antiques that you see are fake. Disney has stressed them to add the perception of aged goods. Others are quite real.
Miners required ore for many of their details during the gold rush. In the attraction area, you may notice an ore-hauling wagon and an ore crusher. There’s even an old ball mill, something miners used during the process of extracting gold from ore. And yes, Disney used some gold to fortify the walls. It’s an authentic touch for a goldminer’s town.
Image: DisneyThe process of ghosting the town was a bit more difficult. How would an Imagineer build a place that looks lived in while simultaneously altering the appearance so that it’s later abandoned? Disney used some simple but impressively effective effects for this bit of immersion. They have lanterns that swing as if pushed by some unseen force. They also have ride carts occasionally make the run without riders, a nod to the fact that the runaway train is leaving with or without people on it.
The experience: a runaway railroad cart through a ghost town
The trick: building the ricketiest ride in Disney history
Image: DisneyImagineers faced another odd challenge in constructing the railroad. They were building mirror attractions at Disneyland and Magic Kingdom, and the process occurred at almost the same time. The Happiest Place on Earth faced constraints that Walt Disney World didn’t have, though.
Everyone knows that space is at a premium at Disneyland. With Big Thunder Mountain Railroad, it was going somewhere that had already had development done. There were non-negotiable space limits in place. Magic Kingdom was the exact opposite. Nothing was there, which meant the ride could be as big as Disney wanted.
Much has been made of the fact that the first two versions were carbon copies. The difference is that Magic Kingdom is 25 percent bigger. That’s why it’s a longer and generally better ride. In building the coaster tracks i.e. the railroad tracks, Imagineers had to allow for both sizes, and that caused difficulties in building each ride to a crescendo. One goes faster than the other and has more track available. Ergo, it’s a different ride experience.
Image: DisneyDisney solved this problem by doing something that’s anathema now. They built a slower ride cart. Even today, Big Thunder Mountain Railroad maxes out at 35 miles per hour. It’s not an attraction built for speed demons. Instead, it’s a cerebral ride experience.
What should you feel like as you ride a runaway mine cart? The journey would seem chaotic, and you’d feel completely out of control the whole time, right? Imagineers deduced that they could build that sensation into the ride simply by adding the right bells and whistles to the coaster cart and tracks.
Image: DisneyThe tracks have steep turns and plenty of dips and hills. You’re sending gold down from a mountain, after all. Disney’s thought of everything on the ride, as some of the turns happen due to track switches. You’ll hear several sounds that emphasize the runaway train theme throughout the ride, too.
Speakers pipe in sounds like bleating goats, squealing brakes, and train whistlers. They even use steam at certain intervals to remind you of transportation system in place. It’s precise theming that leads to suspension of disbelief. Each rickety noise causes you to believe that you’re tick-tick-ticking your way up the mountain, and the train track helixes demonstrate that you have no control over where your cart is going.
The experience: reinvigorating the story with a spectacular line queue
The trick: creating a new line queue that plusses the ride anew
A few years ago, Disney plussed the Magic Kingdom version of Big Thunder Mountain Railroad, modernizing the line queue with more immersive features. In the process, they enhanced the backstory of the ride, emphasizing Barnabas T. Bullion. A painting on one of the walls depicts the gold magnate as a Tony Baxter clone, a fitting tribute to the Imagineer responsible for the attraction.
In the line queue, you’ll notice several elements that enhance your appreciation of the mountain. Perhaps the most exciting one involves a plunger and a lot of dynamite. You’ll see crates with explosive warnings at several intervals.
Eventually, you’ll reach a point where you can turn a crank. Once you’ve done so for an appropriate length of time, you can do something that you’ve only seen in the movies. You can push down a plunger and trigger an explosion! You can verify that you’ve done everything correctly by looking outside. Disney’s set up a clever bit of Imagineering outside. When you hit the detonator, a puff of dusty smoke will explode into the sky, just like in so many Westerns!
Image: DisneyOther line elements that add to the theming include a bank teller and an open safety vault that has stacks of gold bullions. There’s even a painting of the fateful storm that triggered the flash flood that wiped out Tumbleweed.
Another much-appreciated touch is the ventilation system, which you know as the giant fans that cool you down during a hot park day. These are an integral part of the mining infrastructure, as a town blueprint verifies. You can examine all of the places where the ventilation shafts are in place, all while relishing in the welcome breeze.
Finally, alert guests will see one of the least appreciated portions of the new line queue. One of the displays hides an interior monitor. On this monitor, several silent movies are available to watch in succession. I must admit that I had to go through the line several times before I paid any attention to the Subterrascope. It’s these special touches that have turned an already-spectacular ride into a modern miracle of Imagineering.
Image: Disney
