Rivers of America (plus Railroad & Dioramas) Re-Imagineered 2017

mickEblu

Well-Known Member
Skull Rock was never there. Confirmed.

I'm 90% sure that skull rock or some other giant skull rock formation was somewhere perched on the berm to the left of the entry tunnel/ in front of Adventureland at some point in the late 80s. Maybe it was something temporary or short lived. I think a few years back, someone on Micechat also remembered something similar when I brought it up.
 
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Deleted member 107043

I'm 90% sure that skull rock or some other giant skull rock formation was somewhere perched on the berm to the left of the entry tunnel/ in front of Adventureland at some point in the late 80s. Maybe it was something temporary or short lived. I think a few years back, someone on Micechat also remembered something similar when I brought it up.

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TP2000

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
Hans, you always make me laugh with those little attitudinal video clips you add to things here. :D

Here's a really good video of the changes to the Disneyland Railroad and the River vistas. This video was very similar to how I experienced the big changes to Disneyland this weekend; a perfect summer afternoon, the Mark Twain steaming around with the Canoes paddling along below the tracks. Except my trip didn't have a stupid lady staring at her phone while Nature's Wonderland and Walt Disney's Magic Kingdom unfolded in all its wonder before her, like at 3:18 in this video.


Lady, you could have saved yourself a couple hundred bucks by just staying home for the day and staring at your phone on your couch!

@Dr. Hans Reinhardt, by any chance do you have an attitudinal video clip that could sum that up for us?
 
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Ismael Flores

Well-Known Member
I'm in the park right now, and the Disneyland Railroad is having a rough day. There was an unexpected closure earlier and now they are operating the railroad with all stations except NOS closed. Trains arrive every ten minutes, so I imagine there can't be more than two on the line. I assume NOS was chosen as the sole station for now because it is ADA compliant and can use the adjacent park as queuing space.

That is strange, I was there all day Saturday and decided to do some things before I rode the train. Finally got on train at around 4pm and all stations had their queues full and trains arriving constantly even though the signs said trains every 20 minutes.

Didn't see any issues. Rode the final trip in the mark twin before they closed it for Fantasmic set up and saw trains running as they passed thru the new back area of the river.
Once I got off the twain walked over to haunted mansion and Winnie the Pooh. Both were less than 15 minutes splash was not boy busy ride at 60 minutes and still saw trains running with New Orleans square busy.
Then walked over to fantasyland and over by ITASW and toontown station had people queued up. Decided to leave as electrical parade was starting and arrived mainstreet and saw portion of parade next to mainstreet station and there was people queued up and saw more than one train arrived.

I didn't see them having any issues in Saturday with the trains unless they did in the early morning.
 

George Lucas on a Bench

Well-Known Member
The train going over the river reminds me of Stand by Me.

I'm weirdly fascinated by the Toontown tunnel. It doesn't exactly resemble the Griffith Park tunnel as-is or with the adornments from Roger Rabbit. But it's too much of a coincidence for a tunnel like that to lead to Toontown. The train gets the entrance more correct than the land, even if it's still inaccurate.
 

Ismael Flores

Well-Known Member
Certainly a point could be made towards eliminating one, or even both of those stations.

I have a feeling whenever tonorrowland is reconfigured the train stop will change. Being shoved down that corridor is pretty awful.

They really need to tear out the bottom portion of the old skyway building, the small shop and restrooms along with the circle vision building and redesign that whole area. It is a mess.

Would also have enjoyed seeing a new scene for adventureland along the train tracks. Why not add some ruins of an old temple and use some projections.

What they did to the Grand Canyon and dinosaur section really added to that those scenes. The lightning on the briber log really enhanced that area alone. It's too bad that they dont slowly update the dinosaurs. Aren't the dinosaurs from the energy pavilion in epcot in better shape and with more
Movement. Can some of those be used?

With the rumors that universal will be replacing their dinosaurs with some very advanced new audio animatronics you would hope Disney would do the same. The video that was posted on youtubes showing what universal is considering look amazing
 

Ismael Flores

Well-Known Member
Anyone know if it's true that they are still doing work inside the tunnel that leads to toontown?
Can't remember now where I read that the reason the inside of the tunnel has some wooden walls with posters is because WDI left some room within the tunnel to add a small show scene that wasn't ready in time and that is still being worked on.

Seemed strange that they added posters on those walls but were not very well lit
 

TP2000

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
They really need to tear out the bottom portion of the old skyway building, the small shop and restrooms along with the circle vision building and redesign that whole area. It is a mess.

Would also have enjoyed seeing a new scene for adventureland along the train tracks. Why not add some ruins of an old temple and use some projections.

What they did to the Grand Canyon and dinosaur section really added to that those scenes. The lightning on the briber log really enhanced that area alone. It's too bad that they dont slowly update the dinosaurs. Aren't the dinosaurs from the energy pavilion in epcot in better shape and with more
Movement. Can some of those be used?

With the rumors that universal will be replacing their dinosaurs with some very advanced new audio animatronics you would hope Disney would do the same. The video that was posted on youtubes showing what universal is considering look amazing

Disneyland's dinosaurs were built in 1963 for the 1964-65 New York World's Fair and the big Ford Motor Company pavilion. EPCOT Center's dinosaurs were copies, made at the same time they were making copies for Tokyo Disneyland's Primeval World diorama, around 1981. So Disneyland's dinosaurs are 17 years older than EPCOT's.

That said, I've seen Tokyo Disneyland's nearly identical Primeval World diorama on their railroad, and it's about the same as Disneyland's. There's not a whole lot of movement built into those figures, and neither were they improved for EPCOT. Disneyland USA wins the dinosaur war by maintaining them at the same standard as Tokyo, but adding in new lighting and new digital projections that help tell the story much better and do a better job of setting the mood.

EPCOT loses for having horrible maintenance for the last decade or more. Their dinosaurs barely jiggled and wiggled, and the lighting was stuck in 1982. It was sad, and I won't be sorry to see that old Exxon pavilion close next month. They just can't take care of their toys out at WDW, so they don't deserve nice things.
 

The Empress Lilly

Well-Known Member
Disneyland's dinosaurs were built in 1963 for the 1964-65 New York World's Fair and the big Ford Motor Company pavilion. EPCOT Center's dinosaurs were copies, made at the same time they were making copies for Tokyo Disneyland's Primeval World diorama, around 1981. So Disneyland's dinosaurs are 17 years older than EPCOT's.

That said, I've seen Tokyo Disneyland's nearly identical Primeval World diorama on their railroad, and it's about the same as Disneyland's. There's not a whole lot of movement built into those figures, and neither were they improved for EPCOT. Disneyland USA wins the dinosaur war by maintaining them at the same standard as Tokyo, but adding in new lighting and new digital projections that help tell the story much better and do a better job of setting the mood.

EPCOT loses for having horrible maintenance for the last decade or more. Their dinosaurs barely jiggled and wiggled, and the lighting was stuck in 1982. It was sad, and I won't be sorry to see that old Exxon pavilion close next month. They just can't take care of their toys out at WDW, so they don't deserve nice things.
EPCOT had the best dino section by virtue of being immersed in it, in a slow moving vehicle, seeing the scenes from different angles, even from below. Bigger, prettier, longer. As always, WDW, once the superior, slowly let itself decay until we now find ourselves without a dino ride in the first place.

Wait, we still have the budget engineered version of Indy: dispense of scenery for darkness, with snippets of dino heads and loud noises.
 

The Empress Lilly

Well-Known Member
One of the most amazing things I've ever seen is the first dinosaur scene in the Universe of Energy where the sun rises and the long necked dinosaurs appear. Walt would've crapped himself if he'd seen that. Yes, it was cooler than the Primeval World. Was it as charming? Probably not.
It was astonishing, that scene is one of the strongest imagineering has ever done. A marvel to behold.

Can't believe it will be gone in two weeks. I wanted to go now for a quicky, but I can only go in September. It will be brutal to see the building with a closed sign, knowing the dinos will still just be there and I shall never ride it again, after 35 years of being ingrained in my imagination.
 

Hatbox Ghostbuster

Well-Known Member
Missed catching the train by, quite literally, 5 minutes on Friday. I saw it pulling up into the station and charged the gate only to be greeted by a slightly oversized Joe CastMember with that pleasant grin on his face that told me instantly he wasn't going to let me on. With a large group already waiting on the platform, he just smiles and says, "sorry, we're closing down for the evening." Oh well. Next time lucky. Gave me another opportunity to ride Haunted Mansion.

Glad everyone is responding well to the lightning strike :)
 

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