With the Walt Disney World Railroad now closed for an extended amount of time, Disney is able to work on the part of the TRON roller coaster project that will take place over the railroad route. In addition to the railroad closure, the pathway that connected Tomorrowland and Storybook Circus is also closed. 

Here’s a look at the area from the Tomorrowland PeopleMover.

Here’s a reverse look at the same area from the now-closed pathway back in October. You can see the PeopleMover vantage point that we have in the photo above from the photo below. As you can see, the heavy foliage, train tracks, and walkway have been removed. Also seen in the photo above is a pile of the railings that lined the pathway in the photo below. With the train tracks removed, heavy machinery can easily navigate all the way up to the walls that surround the eastern side of the Tomorrowland Speedway.

Of course, a single photo is more than enough to build an entire blog post off of, but we try to go the extra mile here at Blog Mickey. That meant snagging a Barnstormer FastPass+ for an elevated view from the opposite side of the construction site than the PeopleMover photo above.

A closer look at the berm that used to host a canopy of trees.

In the photo below, we can see that the canal that used to run along the backside of the berm has been dammed up and will soon be filled in with a large pile of dirt that’s been sitting around for months. It appears that work is still being done on the canal rerouting, but it should be completed soon.

When completed, the TRON roller coaster will sit mostly on this previously backstage plot of land next to Space Mountain, but it will require a reroute of the Tomorrowland Speedway. The Tomorrowland Speedway is scheduled to start a multi-month refurbishment in early January. 

The TRON roller coaster is expected to be a clone of the Shanghai Disneyland version and will open in time for the 50th Anniversary of the Walt Disney World Resort in 2021.