Sources of Mickey Views suggest that Walt Disney World President Jeff Vahle has finally greenlit plans to update Big Thunder Mountain Railroad at Walt Disney World. This rumored update doesn’t just involve new track components and control systems, but new theming as well! In particular, a heavily modified version of the dynamite explosion effect previously added to other versions of Big Thunder across the globe.
As reported in our news video this morning, Big Thunder Mountain will soon receive a major overhaul. While no specifics have been officially announced, the opening of Tiana’s Bayou Adventure will provide the necessary ‘wiggle room’ capacity-wise to enable Park Operations to close another Magic Kingdom attraction for long-needed updates.
Changes to Big Thunder Mountain Railroad as part of this update are likely to include replacing hardware on the attraction’s lift hills, which have been a cause of unexpected downtime for the attraction in recent years. Changes may also include a complete redo of the ride’s control board and its ancillary sensors. Replacing sensors and adding new ones would contribute to better ride reliability and less downtime.
Most exciting, sources indicate the overhaul plans include adding explosion effects to Walt Disney World’s Big Thunder Mountain. This effect, found in other iterations of the attraction at Disney Parks around the world, was previously planned as an attraction enhancement for Walt Disney World’s 50th anniversary. The project was shelved by then-CEO Bob Chapek in March of 2020. The version of this effect allegedly greenlit will not be exactly same as the version found in Disneyland. The source indicates Walt Disney World’s version may be ‘value engineered,’ although further specifics were not provided.
Let us know what you think of these potential changes coming to Big Thunder Mountain at the Magic Kingdom! Please watch our full video for more information on this and other news items.
I would love it if RNR was changing to Powerline and the Goofy movie
Need to speed it up! The ride in Paris is night and day better the WDW BTM, the explosion effects won’t make the actual ride any more thrilling, unless they design it like DLP , they could ! Go under the rivers of America and rpl TSI . With Tron now in TL, BTM is looking older than ever, this year , rode in the front cart, might as well walked the ride, it was so slow . I’m not big on rollacoasters, but this needs TLC and soon .
Imagine if they spent the money from Splash Mountain to build a new Tiana ride an add capacity instead of needing “wiggle room” to actually make needed maintenance and updates. Disney really does stink at theme parks now.