A new Notice of Commencement permit has been filed by Walt Disney World for the upcoming refurbishment of Big Thunder Mountain Railroad. The permit is interesting for a couple of reasons, especially when considering our recent visit to Magic Kingdom where we saw some work underway. Let’s dive in.

New Permit for Big Thunder Mountain Railroad Refurbishment

Interestingly, the newly filed permit is assigned by Walt Disney World Facility Asset Management (FAM), and not Walt Disney Imagineering. Generally, a permit filed by FAM indicates that the work to be completed isn’t related to the show of the attraction or experience, and instead has to do with the facility itself.

An example of a FAM permit was the recent refurbishment of Jungle Cruise. While our article focused on the visible changes to the ride such as refreshed sets and resculpted rockwork, the permit filed by FAM was concerned with the infrastructure of the ride.

Another aspect of the permit that is interesting is the contractor asked to do the work. The contractor listed on the permit is DPR Construction. DPR is not typically associated with work related to theming, or even ride systems in general. Instead, DPR builds buildings. The permit address does resolve to Big Thunder Mountain Railroad, and specifically the ride portion of the attraction permit, so it’ll be interesting to see what the scope of the work here will be.

Finally, another very notable part of the permit is the expiration date. We already know that Big Thunder Mountain Railroad will be closed starting January 6, 2025, but Walt Disney World only announced a reopening timeframe of “2026”. The work will certainly be extensive (rumored to include a full re-track of the aging structure), but when will the ride reopen?

The permit foregoes the standard 1-year expiration timeframe and instead has a manually-entered date of 3/13/2026. Without a more definitive reopening timeframe from Walt Disney World, we can start to assume that the current target is to have Big Thunder Mountain Railroad open for Summer 2026 and perhaps even Spring 2026.

We’ll continue to keep an eye on permits filed for the work to see if more expiration dates align with the current March 2026 timeframe, or if the work covered by this permit is somehow out of sync with the rest of the construction planned for the ride.

In terms of rumored work to be completed during the lengthy downtime, we expect that there will be significant work done on the roller coaster ride system. The structure is aging, and we assume that the scope of the work will be similar to the full re-track seen at Disneyland Park back in 2013-2014. In fact, the construction timeframe for the Disneyland refurbishment is very interesting, and could perfectly foreshadow what will happen at Walt Disney World.

As always, keep checking back with us here at BlogMickey.com as we continue to bring you the latest news, photos, and info from around the Disney Parks!