3. A re-paced introduction

Aboard Runaway Railway, the first scene sees Goofy's train set off out of the train barn and into Runnamuck Park. Off in the distance, Mickey and Minnie in their red coupe can be seen winding along roadways before they enter a tunnel, with our train heading into a similar tunnel entry to rendezvous with them... And here, Imagineers made a serious upgrade to Disneyland's ride. Entering the tunnel, we get out first in-person look at Mickey and Minnie as they drive up alongside us in their convertible.

At Walt Disney World (above), Mickey immediately drives to the tunnel's end, parking with his front bumper against a "track switch." From his parked position, Mickey carries on a conversation with "Engineer Goofy," but if you happen to be in the third or fourth car, you'll hear much more of Mickey than you'll see of him, and you'll entirely miss him driving in since he'll already have reached the tunnel's end by time you round the corner.

As our train finally catches up, the track switch he's parked up against suddenly begins to teeter in place, then falls. The bad things about this are that anyone who's not in the front car of the train basically only catches the very end of Mickey pulling into the tunnel, and that it doesn't quite compute that out of the blue, the track switch suddenly just falls over without being pushed.

At Disneyland (above), the scene has been entirely re-paced. Now, Mickey and Minnie drive in alongside the train, carrying on their conversation with Goofy as they ride next to us. It's only as we reach the end of the tunnel that they do, too. Now, instead of awkwardly parking against the track switch and then it falling 10 seconds later, Mickey drives his car into the switch, bumping it. And instead of falling to the side, this sends the track switch spinning, visibly pivoting an arrow that clearly indicates the direction of travel with a musical "ding" to draw attention to it. 

Because the Disneyland scene has been re-paced, the entire train gets the experience of Mickey and Minnie driving alongside them, and it's much clearer that the mouse duo's actions result in the track switch being diverted. It's a simple change done entirely through show programming, which makes us think that this update will likely come to Florida's version when the ride's next refurbishment period arrives. 

4. Extended scenes

That idea of re-pacing the first scene was clearly done based on feedback that if you end up in the "wrong" seat in Florida, you're likely to miss key moments or feel that you're only getting half of the show. Because the ride's vehicles break apart, change order, and rearrange throughout the ride, that means that at least one or two vehicles are going to get a less-than-ideal experience in each room. For example...

At Walt Disney World, if you're unlucky enough to be in the third or fourth car when the ride begins, you'll not only miss much of the "Tunnel" scene with Mickey and Minnie, but by time you "jump the track" and enter the Wild West scene, it's nearly over! Sure, by design, the scenes in Runaway Railway aren't heavily plotted or anything, but for guests in cars 3 and 4, before you can even register what's happening in the Wild West scene, it's "lights out" as the scene darkens and resets, with your car rushing off to try to get into the Carnival scene before the action starts.

The same things happens in the "Island" room. Here, Mickey & Minnie are tossed by the tornado, landing in a tropical fern that folds down as the two – via Audio-Animatronics – tell guests that "Nothing can stop us now!" just before a volcano erupts. Unfortunately, if you're the third or fourth car into that scene, you won't even see the Animatronics, as by time you arrive, the volcano eruption will have begun and the ferns fold back up to cover the figures. In fact, the last car into the room practically just pulls right into the last of the individual "projection domes" that sends guests over a waterfall, skipping the "Island" scene altogether.

At Disneyland, the Wild West scene has been re-animated with a new extended sequence and an additional physical set. It's not a radical change, and nothing new "of substance" was added... But simply by having Mickey and Minnie enter together rather than apart and hop around the room a bit more on their horses, the final cars to enter the scene actually get to take it in for a moment, and the scene ends just as they exit instead of several seconds before. 

Likewise, Disneyland's version of the ride has re-animated the "Island" scene so that it doesn't really even begin into every vehicle has made into the room. Even if you're in the last car to enter the scene, you'll still see Minnie and Mickey land in the fern, hear their dialogue, and see the volcano erupt from the beginning.

(Curiously, even Disneyland's version didn't fix the simple continuity error here. When you turn into the projection dome as find yourself carried away on an island river, the sky should be red like it was in the scene you just exited! That would not only connect the two environments, but strengthen the dichotomy of the fiery island and the blue underwater scene that follows! Oh well...) 

The "Alley" scene (with Mickey and Minnie looking down on guests from the Factory windows) has also been re-paced so that the last cars get a full experience with Minnie before she's sucked into the Factory's interior. 

Like the re-paced introduction, we'd expect that when Disney World's Runaway Railway  ... but we'll see. Nothing's as easy as it seems, especially since Disney World and Disneyland's scenes do have significantly different layouts and thus, animations and motions.

5. The extra scenes

Early document filings suggested that Runaway Railway would recieve a few extra scenes in Disneyland, which wouldn't at all be a surprise to the "Be Fair to Florida" constituency who's pretty used to Disneyland getting the improved version of things. Then, insiders began to report that, yeah, kinda, but those extra scenes were really just to make up for the from-scratch California showbuilding necessitating different layouts for scenes (for example, you exit out the right of Daisy's Dance Studio instead of the left) and the spaces needed to connect them. 

Now we know that Disneyland's version does indeed have two "extra" scenes.

The first occurs after the "Island" scene has become the "Ocean" scene. In it, the fan-favorite squid has gained a new job. Instead of just floating, dead-eyed, until it unexpectedly (and delightfully) pulls out a trumpet, the squid grips onto a rocky arch, bracing itself. That's because – in a new "connector" room – the squid's legs can be seen pulling a plug, leading into the draining sewers that ultimately deposit us in the "Big City." It's not a particularly essential moment nor really some cool new environment... instead, it's a smart use of a necessary new "room" created by the ride's reorganization to fit a few physical space.

Likewise, the second new "scene" occurs after the "Factory" has folded itself back into a starlit "Runnamuck Park." Just as in Florida, riders escape the Smasher at the last second as a great choral symphony begins, pivoting as the factory reshapes itself and re-uniting with Engineer Goofy (who, of course, doesn't seem to have noticed that we were gone at all). But rather than advancing directly into the finale where Mickey and Minnie finally get their "Perfect Picnic," the physical layout of the building instead requires an additional hallway connecting the newly-folded park to the one where the finale awaits.

As a solution, a "Covered Bridge" works well. It's a smart fix for the unintuitive, utilitarian need for a hallway to connect two halves of a park. But admittedly, it's a little odd. Basically, the swirling symphony of music that clearly should lead into "Nothing Can Stop Us Now" (and does in Florida) instead quiets as Goofy awkwardly vamps. The "Covered Bridge" scene is a full 20 seconds, which is a lifetime in ride form. It would seem to us that a smart fix might be to have that orchestral symphony continue as we cross the bridge, with projections creating beautiful, flowing vines grow and bloom across the bridge's interior as we pass. That would more naturally lead into Mickey & Minnie's stirring musical finale than an awkward connector scene.

The thing is, if you haven't ridden Florida's version of the ride, you probably wouldn't even notice anything odd here... but for those who've studied their POVs (or better yet, ridden both in person!), it's clearly a gap of a scene where music and projections would probably be more effective than Goofy's time-filling. 

What changes did you notice between Disneyland Disney World's versions of Runaway Railway? Do you prefer one to the other? Which setting and queue do you think are the stronger ones? Do you wish Disney has built the Toontown version of the ride in Hollywood Studios' Animation Courtyard instead of the Chinese Theater? Which "plusses" from Disneyland's version would you like to see in Florida?