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.