The renovations on Big Thunder Mountain Railroad at Magic Kingdom continue with a special vehicle on the new track on the coaster’s mountainous twists and turns. There’s also a bunch of scaffolding still around the track. With an attraction that quite literally is a large outdoor artificial mountain it’s difficult for Disney to camouflage the work behind walls or indoors like they often like to do. The ride is slated to open sometime in 2026 and that probably can’t come soon enough for Disney with the July 6, 2025 closure of Rivers of America and Tom Sawyer Island making this corner of the park pretty quiet for the rest of the year.

The track is rumored to essentially be complete and now undergoing “envelope” testing. In envelope testing the ability of the train and more importantly riders to traverse the course without making contact with any track, structure or theming is tested. Think of the arms of the tallest person you can think of being able to be raised throughout the ride and still being able to come back with all their fingers. It also tests to be sure there is no interference with the rolling of the train itself. To do this engineers often use special vehicles before expensive and highly visible trains are put on the track. It’s actually been reported that Big Thunder Mountain failed its first envelope test contacting part of the mountain, but it’s still months before opening with lots of time to work out the kinks. I originally believed the yellow vehicle below is believed to be an envelope tester, but the amazingly knowledgeable Ryan the Ride Mechanic informed me that, “although you could hook the tester to it, it’s mainly an overgrown dolly more than likely used to pull equipment or even track competes into the tunnels where forklifts can’t reach.” He even talked about what he termed a “working or carrier sled” in a recent video.

In addition to the new track Disney has also said that “the attraction will reopen with a little bit of new magic.” Although it hasn’t been disclosed what exactly this means, we can conjecture a guess based on other versions of this attraction across the world. Each one is unique with several special effects that are not currently conserved across all the versions of the ride. It has been reported that permits have been filed show work on both the track, but also the surrounding structure. With the track looking nearly complete it might seem strange that we’re still looking at 6 months until it we reopens, but remember Tiana’s Bayou Adventure essentially left the ride system intact with just theme changes and it still took a year and a half.

“The attraction will reopen with a little bit of new magic.”

Big Thunder Mountain Railroad is about to be at the epicenter of 2 major Magic Kingdom expansions. The first will be the the new Cars themed land now more known as Piston Peak National Park. It will feature a car ride similar to the Radiator Springs Racers, a high-speed ride at Disney California Adventure, but in a water and mountain-filled Rocky Mountain style area. It’ll be interesting to see how the desert theme of Big Thunder blends with the Rocky Mountains of Piston Peak, but it is shown in the concept art. It’s also been rumored for sometime that this would also create a direct walkway between Big Thunder Mountain Railroad and Haunted Mansion instead of the long walk around the water to get to the attraction.

There’s also another project that for a long time was just known as “Beyond Big Thunder Mountain” due to the potential “expansion pad” of land located behind that ride. It appears that we now know what will go in that expansion pad and it’s the also long rumored Villains Land that was announced at the D23 2024 event along with the Cars land. This land is slated to have two major attractions, one of which appears to be a major villains themed roller coaster.

In the coming years people may talk more about what is next to and “Beyond Big Thunder Mountain” as opposed to Big Thunder Mountain Railroad itself, but this coaster should not be taken for granted. It was created by the great Imagineer Tony Baxter and creates a near perfect balance between theme, speed/thrill and still being family friendly. It’s no technical slouch either as how many coasters out there feature 3 lift hills? It’s great to see this coaster getting a refresh that will hopefully have it making roller coaster memories for families for decades to come.