Walt Disney Imagineering has taken to social media to showcase updates made to the Tumbleweed scene on Big Thunder Mountain Railroad. The attraction will reopen tomorrow, May 3rd, following a 16-month refurbishment that included the replacement of all roller coaster track, along with a refresh and new magic. Here’s a closer look!
Flooded Town of Tumbleweed Receives Refresh at Big Thunder Mountain Railroad
The Walt Disney Imagineering Instagram account has shared a sneak peek at updates made to the flooded town of Tumbleweed. This is an outdoor scene that guests zip through that has quite the backstory. In fact, Disney shared an updated backstory for Magic Kingdom’s Big Thunder Mountain Railroad recently. Here’s how Disney described the town of Tumbleweed:
Once a flourishing boomtown working hand in hand with the prosperous lifestyle of a miner, the town of Tumbleweed was the beating heart of the region’s Wild West ambitions. Complete with a boarding house, a company store, a saloon, a jail, and several other establishments, Tumbleweed was once a soaring town full of high hopes and spirited dreams, accompanied by Big Thunder’s early success.
But as the mines fell silent, Tumbleweed began to dwindle. The steady flow of fortune dried up, and hardship and an unforgiving drought have stacked the odds against its favor; the town has now grown as lifeless as the surrounding desert, with its once-bustling streets now coated in dust and despair.
Yet the people of Tumbleweed cling to hope whenever it can be found on the horizon. Enter Professor Cumulus Isobar, “Rainmaker Extraordinaire and Purveyor of Magical Elixirs,” a scholar who has recently gained local popularity as someone who guarantees that his paying customers would not go dry for long.
His arrival has brought slight optimism among locals, as his mere presence has sometimes brought rain into the forecast with an eventual flash flood result if the nearby ground had baked too long in the sun. Whether he is a miracle worker or a master showman of the Wild West remains to be seen, but Isobar has become the town’s latest gamble in its quest to return to its former glory.
In the update shared below, we can see that Imagineers revamped effects, refurbished figures, and updated paint.
When compared to our file photos from our last ride on the old version of Big Thunder Mountain Railroad from January 2025, we can see that Disney has changed the color of paint used on buildings and the wagon. Everything else looks to have received a fresh coat of paint to ensure that the Magic Kingdom classic remains picture-perfect for years to come.
Here are our photos of the town of Tumbleweed from January 2025, followed by Disney’s Instagram post highlighting the updates.
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