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MK Big Thunder Mountain to receive full retrack

Scoots71

Member
Still the same restraint setup:
big-thunder-mountain-railroad-ride-testing-0128-2026-6.jpg


Thanks for that. I missed that one. May have to keep an arm around the little guy as he may try to go flying. Haha.
 

co10064

Well-Known Member
Premium Member
The ride’s single lap bar really makes you feel like you’re going to fly out if you have a mismatched height/weight profile than your fellow rider. It’s one ride where I am actively holding onto a child the entire time.

No doubt the ride is safe, but I often question how no one has been ejected yet. 😅
 

monothingie

Top 100. But #1 in my heart.
Premium Member
1775674049599.png

Note the fold away piece on the first row of the car for easier transfer from wheelchair.

Also it seems that the padding on the restraint bar has also been removed. This may explain the lower height requirement.
1775674258810.png
 

Notes from Neverland

Well-Known Member

Slowjack

Well-Known Member
Hmm. On my daughter's first trip to WDW, we rode BTMR when she was just tall enough at whatever was the old height requirement. She rode next to my wife and I rode in the car behind. My daughter was apparently very frightened by how loud the first chain lift was.

Point being, she told me this, while on the second lift hill. That is, she turned around, such that she was on her knees on the seat, facing backwards, entirely unfettered by the bar. I frantically shouted and wife corralled her back under the bar before the top of the lift.

So I'm not sure I'm cool with them lowering the height requirement if the restraint system has not meaningfully changed.
 

Disone

Well-Known Member
I was hoping they’d fix the cosmetic issue of having only one “driving” (large red) wheel on the locomotives.

Puts all the more pressure on those opossums! They better be swinging!
Agreed! Me too!!!! They just look wrong with one drive wheel.
the rear driving wheels were eleminated for safety reasosn
Ehhhh. I'm sure the technology has come along that they could bring them back now. They were cosmetic but they were also not the cause of the accident. The front drive wheels are actually weight-bearing but the second set was just cosmetic. Cosmetic indeed and they just look completely off without them. Time to find a "safe way " to reinstall them.
months of downtime must have not been enough time to repaint the rolling stock cars.....

/sarcasm
The coaster cars are new. That's the intentional aged look. You just gave them the ultimate compliment. They're purposely antiqued brand new cars and you just commented that they couldn't even bother to repaint them. Some imagineer read that and said " Mission accomplished."
There's still padding on the restraint. You can see it in the picture below.
View attachment 916022
Woah.... That's a lot of padding. I don't recall the original cars having that much padding especially on the sides.
 

MerlinTheGoat

Well-Known Member
I believe the track has been slightly straightened in this shot:

View attachment 916093

There was rocking effect built into the track here, and I don't see it in the profiling.
You are most likely correct about this. I've been waiting to get a confirmed closer look at this section of the track. But I did make a post about 2 weeks ago in this thread about this. There were possible hints of this in earlier photos, but it was harder to see. A friend told me quite a while back that this section of the track had been straightened out and would no longer jostle and jerk sideways anymore. Just straight with vertical humps now. They weren't going off photos either, someone working on it told them about this. It's starting to appear that they were correct.

I was never a fan of this jerkiness myself (I also think it distracts from the scenery and makes it harder to focus on it), but I know others liked it and it'll be a controversy when they realize it's gone. Wonder if this was the infamous "kidney stone dislodger" section of the ride. Guess the nephrologists will be happy to get more customers...
 

Coaster Lover

Well-Known Member
In the Parks
No
No doubt the ride is safe, but I often question how no one has been ejected yet. 😅

Physics... I'd suspect that the minimum vertical g's is still >0. Lots of "floater" airtime, no "ejector" airtime. The lap bar is there more for psychological purposes. There are significantly more intense coasters out there with similarly minimal restraints that have operated safely without anyone falling out for just as long (if not longer) [Phoenix at Knoebels comes to mind].
 

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