This is a multi-part blog, because it's going to take some time to get all the way through. So don't expect the whole section on this series to be completed.
Big Thunder's history begins
in 1956. That year, Disneyland opened a train ride in Frontierland called the
Rainbow Caverns Mine Train. Departing from the town of Rainbow Ridge, mine
trains ran across desert landscapes and through a dark cavern filled with
colorful phosphorescent pools and waterfalls. In the desert, based on the
True-Life Adventure film The Living Desert, trains passed below rocks that sometimes spin and/or almost teeter
on the edge of falling. In the words of Disneyland USA, a People and Places film about Disneyland, this is nature's version of
"heavy, heavy hangs over thy head". The movie, however, reassures
everyone that the rocks are safe and that "not one has ever been lost, either
a rock or a visitor." There are cacti in the area, of course, but one
tries to hitchhike with passengers.
In 1960, the mine train was improved, expanded and renamed the Mine Train Through Nature's Wonderland. This
version added further natural scenery as one passed by early robotic versions
of animals, similar to the Jungle Cruise, in various desert and forest-like
settings. The trains also passed by huge waterfalls that survived for several
years before being dismantled some forty years later. Here below is a big
archival trip through this predecessor to Big Thunder (by way of pictures and
audio):
There is also a blog on the old Mine
Train ride for anyone interested: http://nwrr.blogspot.com/.
Meanwhile, seven years later, Disneyland
was enjoying its highest attendance to date, thanks to the unqualified success
of Pirates of the Caribbean, the last Disneyland attraction to be personally
overseen by Walt. But the Imagineers were not about to rest on their laurels.
Even now, construction was going forward on Walt's last and greatest dream,
located in Florida.
Meanwhile,
seven years later, Disneyland was enjoying its highest attendance to date,
thanks to the unqualified success of Pirates of the Caribbean, the last
Disneyland attraction to be personally overseen by Walt. But the Imagineers
were not about to rest on their laurels. Even now, construction was going
forward on Walt's last and greatest dream, located in Florida.
As
the Florida project, known as Walt Disney World, took form, it was debated
about whether to include Pirates in this new Magic Kingdom park of this resort.
The concern was that guests would have little interest in a trip through the
simulated Caribbean islands, when the real deal was just a hop, a skip and a
jump away, and Florida was already steeped in its own pirate history besides.
On the other hand, they also expected guests to expect a Pirates-like ride to
be included. So Imagineer Marc Davis conjured up Thunder Mesa, a huge complex
which would house a new wild and woolly version of Pirates called Western River
Expedition. To answer the need for a roller coaster thrill ride, which the Magic
Kingdom was also lacking, Marc Davis also folded a roller coaster, themed to a
mine train, into the proceedings.
Davis'
original take on a runaway mine train was a ride that started out serenely,
with a mine train that cruised through caverns, not unlike the original Mine
Train Through Nature's Wonderland at Disneyland. Then, as the train goes
through a mine, it starts to make its way up a very steep hill. But then it
gets uncoupled from the main engine and plunges back down the hill and into a
previously-closed-off section of the mine for a speedy trip backwards through
tunnels and around twists and turns, before almost falling into a bottomless
abyss deep within the mountain. Fortunately, the mine cars are saved from
certain doom in the nick of time when a miner throws an emergency brake and the
main engine catches up with the cars and is reattached to them.
Like
the rest of Western River, this was a casualty of the advents of both Pirates of the Caribbean and Space Mountain. Another factor working
against this prospective attraction, as with the rest of Western River, was its
projective cost, which was pegged to be an astronomical $60 million. At the
time, a war had broken out in the Middle East, which in turn had struck the
western world with an oil embargo, which drained the trip-going public’s
interest in going to Walt Disney World. So the project, along with numerous
other projects, was put on hold indefinitely. Along with numerous other factors
that stood in the way of this ride was the fact that numerous other attractions
would have also intertwined with Western River. Then along came a newcomer to
the Imagineering department, name of Tony Baxter, who had helped build several MK attractions. After the park
opened, Baxter landed a job in the model department, which was home to several
new, upcoming projects for the parks. One of them was Thunder Mesa. It was here
that Marc Davis allowed Baxter to work on the mine train portion of the
structure while Davis worked on Western River. But Baxter could not seem to
work with it. What he was working with was simply a runaway mine train on a
green rolling hill.
As
the embargo subsided in 1974, the Imagineering brass toured the department to
see what new projects could go forward or not. Baxter told his superiors straightforwardly
that he did not like what he was working with. He claimed that it had no story
or theme; it was just a mine train on a green hill. He then explained how he
would approach a ride like this. Davis had designed the ride so that the
thrilling aspect of the ride did not pick up until later in the game. Baxter
felt that a ride like this should be thrilling from start to finish, with
exciting scenes every step of the way and building to an intense climax. In
response, they allowed Baxter to develop the mine train ride his way, not as a
supporting player to Western River, but as a leading player for Frontierland's
roster of attractions. (Davis was none too happy with Baxter for them choosing
the latter's mine train ride over the former's boat ride, and he never forgave him
for that.) However, Baxter's plan would be put on hold for a while longer, due
to the construction of Space Mountain, which the executives felt made for a
better, more dramatic closing to the resort’s "phase one", especially
since the country was already deep in the space race.
Fortunately
for Baxter and his mine train project, there was another Disney park that needed help...
Stay
tuned for more!
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