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« The Flintstones at the New York World's Fair | Main | Meet the Man Who Built Walt Disney’s Magic Kingdoms »
Friday
Mar212014

Big Thunder Mountain Railroad Construction- Magic Kingdom

Posted by AuthorMitch

It's January 20, 1980. Let's hop aboard the Admiral Joe Fowler Riverboat to see the the construction of Walt Disney World's latest E-Ticket attraction.

Wait a minute... TWO Riverboats?? Yes.

Look! A totem pole.

These wonderful photo were taken by Dan Hiller aboard the Riverboat in 1980. The attraction opened ten months later. Disneyland's Big Thunder opened 14 months prior to Magic Kingdom's Big Thunder.

We often hear that the track layout of the Magic Kingdom Big thunder is almost a mirror image of the Disneyland Big Thunder. How true is this? Below we see both mountains side-by-side. The Magic Kingdom layout is, indeed, almost a mirror image, but with bit of added track. 

Here we see the Magic Kingdom version flipped horizontally and placed over the Disneyland version.

Big Thunder Mountain history goes way back and is extremely interesting. From Mine Train Thru Nature's Wonderland to Marc Davis to Thunder Mesa and Western River Expedition to Tony Baxter and everything since.

Thank you, Dan, for talking these photos back when few people thought of photographing theme park construction.

If anyone else would like to share their old photos of the Disney theme parks, share them with us via our PHOTO HUNT.

 

Related posts:

The Wonders of Nature's Wonderland
Big Thunder Mountain Model
Magic Kingdom's Space Mountain Construction
WDW Construction: Magic Kingdom
Walt Disney World in 1971 [Part 1]


DateFriday, March 21, 2014 at 12:56PM | | Comment6 Comments |
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Reader Comments (6)

Very nice!!

March 21, 2014 | Unregistered CommenterScott

You know, I've seen very few construction photos of any of the BTMs, so this is a real treat. I'm very fascinated by the faux rockwork being created here. Great photos!

March 23, 2014 | Unregistered CommenterWilliams

That's a very interesting comparison between the two versions. I'm glad that the Disneyland version has finally opened after so long! :)

March 24, 2014 | Unregistered Commentertikiroomfan

That animated gif is mesmerizing. I can't look away.

Great pics.

March 28, 2014 | Unregistered CommenterJumpingElephant

Thank you for the link to my photo with the totem poles. I always enjoyed that photo but it never received many views until this weekend!

April 1, 2014 | Unregistered CommenterBill Wensel

I nominated you for a Leibster award. You can check it out at my Disney Blog at http://disaddict.wordpress.com/2014/04/26/my-blog-got-nominated-for-an-award/

April 27, 2014 | Unregistered CommenterShannon

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