Big Thunder Mountain Railroad is a mine train roller coaster located at four Disney theme parks. Designed by Walt Disney Imagineering, led by Imagineer Tony Baxter, the first two installations were constructed by Arrow Development, which opened at Disneyland and Walt Disney World in 1979 and 1980, respectively. The ride was later added to Tokyo Disneyland in 1987 and Disneyland Park at Disneyland Paris in 1992, both of which were built by Vekoma and named Big Thunder Mountain.
The origin design from Baxter was developed to replace Mine Train Through Nature's Wonderland, a railroad attraction that operated in Frontierland at Disneyland from 1956 through 1977. The installation at each location has several unique characteristics, although the ride layout at Magic Kingdom in Disney World is nearly identical to the one at Disneyland. Its theme centers on the American Southwest and a fictional rail line used to transport gold to a small mining town.
Theme
Although the details of the backstory vary from park to park, all follow the same general story arc. Sometime in the late 1800s, gold was discovered on Big Thunder Mountain in the American Southwest. Overnight, a small mining town became a thriving one (Rainbow Ridge in Disneyland; Tumbleweed in Magic Kingdom; Thunder Mesa in Disneyland Park Paris) under the thumb of the greedy mining company owner (Barnabas T. Bullion in the American versions, Henry Ravenswood in Disneyland Park Paris). Mining was prosperous, and an extensive line of mine trains was set up to transport the ore. Unknown to the settlers, the mountain was a sacred spot to local Native Americans and was cursed.Birnbaum's Disneyland Resort Official Guide 2003, pg. 65, (c) 2003 Disney Editions
Before long, the settlers' desecration of the mountain caused a great tragedy, which, depending on the park, is usually depicted to be an earthquake (Disneyland and Disneyland Park Paris), a tsunami (Tokyo Disneyland), or a flash flood (Magic Kingdom), which befell the mines and town, and the town was 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 wanderers to take rides on the possessed trains.
The detailed backstory, while present in park literature and training materials, is not communicated to park guests directly. The station buildings on all four versions of the ride are themed to the appearance of a mining company office from the mid to late 19th century. In the Disneyland park, there is music and laughing in one of the saloons of Rainbow Ridge, and a typewriter is heard from a newspaper office. The mountains themselves are themed to the red rock formations of the American Southwest. The rock work designs in the Disneyland version are based on the hoodoos of Bryce Canyon National Park in Utah. In the Magic Kingdom, Tokyo and Paris versions of the ride, the rockwork designs are based on the rising buttes that are located in Arizona and at Monument Valley in Utah. The attraction was designed to make it appear that the rocks were there originally, and the track was built around the rocks, unlike a number of earlier mine rides, which were built the other way around (by sculpting the rocks around the tracks). There is also a dinosaur skeleton that the train passes by in all versions of the ride except the Paris version. A cracked eggshell is nearby, and there is a lake with water that is shot up while the train passes on the warmer days. Sound effects of a 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.
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 concept for the Western River Expedition, a western-themed pavilion at the Magic Kingdom, designed to look like an enormous plateau and contain many rides, including a runaway mine train roller coaster. However, because the pavilion as a whole was deemed too expensive in light of the construction and 1973 opening of Pirates of the Caribbean, Baxter proposed severing the mine train and building it as a separate attraction.
The Big Thunder Mountain Railroad project was put on hold again in 1974 as resources and personnel were being diverted to work on constructing Space Mountain in 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 Railroad was one of the first Disney rides to utilize computer-aided design. Four of Disney's parks feature the attraction. It first opened at Disneyland in 1979, and then a larger version debuted at Magic Kingdom in Florida in 1980. Tokyo Disneyland's version opened in 1987. Disneyland Paris opened with its version in 1992, of which its layout and structure is primarily based on the Florida version of the ride. The Disneyland Paris installation is also the only Big Thunder Mountain to have been an opening-day attraction at its park.
In August 2018, the Paris location got a single rider line. Guests take the normal line and a cast member directs them either towards the single rider entrance or the normal pathway at the level of the panel located a little before the covered line. Less than two years later, a single rider line was also added to the Tokyo location in January 2020. In 2024, the Walt Disney Company announced that the Magic Kingdom location was planned to close for a year-long renovation beginning on January 6, 2025.
Tributes to predecessor At Disneyland, Big Thunder Mountain Railroad was built on the land the Mine Train Through Nature's Wonderland used to occupy. Several tributes to the former attraction are present in the Disneyland version. A scaled-down Western town sits adjacent to the queuing lines and tracks near the station. A Western 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. Many of the animal animatronics throughout the attraction were reused from the previous attraction. Other allusions to the Mine Train through Nature's Wonderland include the Rainbow Caverns (glowing pools of water by the first lift hill) and precariously balanced rocks in the third lift hill tunnel.
The name of the ride itself, "Big Thunder", was originally the name of a large waterfall the old mine train passed on its tour. "Little Thunder" was located nearby.
Name At the Magic Kingdom and at Disneyland, the ride is known by its full name of "Big Thunder Mountain Railroad". The Tokyo and Paris versions drop the word "Railroad", although the full name is still present on the trains.
Kidney stones In the October 2016 Journal of the American Osteopathic Association, a paper entitled "Validation of a Functional Pyelocalyceal Renal Model for the Evaluation of Renal Calculi Passage While Riding a Roller Coaster" was published. The paper's author, Dr. Wartinger, found that patients of his had passed kidney stones after riding Big Thunder Mountain Railroad at Walt Disney World on vacation, including one who passed three stones on three separate occasions. The doctor then tested this result, with the permission of Disney, with a 3D model of a kidney by riding the ride over 20 times. The study found nearly 70% of the time, the kidney stone was passed, with results varying depending on which row they were seated. The study also found that Space Mountain and Rock 'n' Roller Coaster Starring Aerosmith failed to cause this result.
Ride variations Disneyland
While the design of the Walt Disney World version of the ride was done first, Disneyland's version was the first one to open.Surrell, Jason. The Disney Mountains Imagineering at Its Peak, Disney Editions, New York, 2007. pp. 60-75. The track layout was mirrored, placing the attraction to the right of the Rivers of America, if viewed from the central hub. (In Magic Kingdom, the attraction was located to the left of the Rivers of America, which closed at that park in 2025.) To better fit with the adjacent Fantasyland areas of the theme park, the original Walt Disney World design had to be replaced with something more appropriate for Disneyland. The Florida, Tokyo and Paris versions of the ride use sharp-edged mountains and the vibrant colors of Monument Valley, Arizona, while Disneyland's version was developed with more rounded features and muted colors resembling the Bryce Canyon hoodoos in Utah.Surrell, Jason. The Disney Mountains Imagineering at Its Peak, Disney Editions, New York, 2007. pp. 67-69.
Upon entering the attraction, the queue winds through a narrow rock wall and passing by the tracks. The surrounding walls were originally created from 100 tons of gold ore from Rosamond.
Riders board the trains at an outdoor station located near Rainbow Ridge. This is the only version of the ride to feature an outdoor station, as the other versions feature an indoor station instead. Leaving the station, trains enter a bat-infested tunnel, make a right hand turn, then a left hand turn before climbing the first lift hill, which takes trains through a cavern full of stalactites. Leaving the lift hill, the train drops away to the right, then levels out and makes a left hand turn. The track then crosses under the second lift hill drop before making a right hand turn. The sounds of coyotes can be heard howling at the train as it dives into a cave. The train then rises uphill and hits a trim brake, makes a right turn out of the tunnel, and climbs the second lift hill. At the top of the lift, an animatronic goat with a stick of dynamite in its mouth bleats at passing guests as the train drops away to the right, crosses under the lift hill, and rises up into a downward spiraling clockwise helix. Leaving the helix, the train shoots through a small canyon, then drops down into a mining camp, where it hits another trim brake. The train then makes a left hand turn, enters another tunnel, and climbs the third lift hill. As the train climbs the lift, the tunnel is dynamited, and artificial smoke is blasted in guests' faces as the train crests the lift and exits the tunnel. The train then drops to the right, towards the river, then makes a right hand turn and passes through a short tunnel. After crossing over the drop, the trains make a left hand turn as they pass through the ribcage of a T-rex skeleton, hit a trim brake, then make a right hand turn into the final brakes. The train then travels past the buildings of Rainbow Ridge and returns to the station.
On January 7, 2013, the ride was closed for an extensive refurbishment that included a new track, trains, scenery, and new effects on the third lift hill. The attraction reopened on March 17, 2014. The new track was fabricated by Dynamic Structures, the company that had previously rehauled the coaster track in Space Mountain.
Magic Kingdom
The track layout of the Magic Kingdom's version is nearly an identical mirrored layout of the Disneyland attraction.