Crews have returned two freshly refurbished themed carts to Big Thunder Mountain Railroad — the first large props to return to the Magic Kingdom attraction during its refurbishment.
Big Thunder Mountain Railroad Refurbished Carts
The first cart is among the rocks in front of the ride’s queue building. It’s near some brown tarps, where several props were removed in February.
The cart is a much brighter green than before refurbishment. It’s the same design as before, but could be a brand new replica of the old prop. It has yellow border elements and reddish-brown text, plus black lanterns hanging on the sides.
Our picture above shows the cart earlier this year. It used to have barrels, crates, and wood planks inside it. These might be returned later.
The other refurbished cart is in the town of Tumbleweed, across the track from the Gold Dust Saloon. This one is full of barrels and crates, one labeled “Whiskey.” Like the queue cart, this may be a refurbished set piece and props, or new replicas of the old.
For comparison, above is the cart in March 2025, looking weathered and faded.
We’ve already reported on the ongoing paint work on the Tumbleweed buildings. There haven’t been significant changes in recent days, although the wagon at the edge of the “town” is only partially painted blue. The Gold Dust Saloon sign has yet to return to its building.
Behind the town, crews have been working on the ride’s lift hill. They completed a new railing around the hill this week.
From the Liberty Square Riverboat, we could see the top of the lift hill. A new piece of rock has been created where old rock was torn away next to the railing. It’s gray right now, but will later be painted reddish-brown to blend in with the surrounding rockwork.
As we reported last month, Disney has begun testing the coaster’s new track. We could see an envelope tester behind these rocks. These wide circular elements are used to ensure there is enough space around the track, so guests don’t accidentally hit anything.
This bridge has new horizontal beams resembling wood. The bridge was mostly deconstructed to be rebuilt.
Compare our most recent photo to this one from May, showing the exposed coaster track without wood beams on this side.
Smaller pieces of wood (which is probably fake) are staged on scaffolding to create railings around the track. These kinds of elements help hide the track and its steel supports from view, retaining the Old West theming.
The supports under the track are also surrounded by wood planks.
Nearby, where the track enters the mountain, a test cart that previously sat on the track has been removed. It’s still sitting nearby, ready to be put to work. A hole in the rock nearby has yet to be filled in.
We could see another test cart high up on the mountain by Tumbleweed. Scaffolding leads to a nearby ridge, where a bighorn sheep used to stand. All the animal figures were removed from Big Thunder Mountain Railroad for refurbishment off-site.
On the back of the mountain, we saw another section of rockwork torn open.
The concrete rock facade is gone, leaving the interior framework exposed. This is one of the biggest sections of rock we’ve seen removed.
A Big Thunder Mountain Railroad train is covered in blue sheets near the queue. We could see several crew members in the queue from the Walt Disney World Railroad.
Big Thunder Mountain Railroad will reopen in 2026 with “a little bit of new magic.” But soon we won’t be able to look closely at construction, because the Frontierland train station is closing temporarily, and the Liberty Square Riverboat is closing permanently next month.
Watch our 4K multicam full ride POV from before refurbishment began:
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