Set in gold-rush days, the theme of this thrilling roller coaster is a runaway train. It's a bumpy ride with several good drops and moments when you feel like you're going to fly right off the tracks, but there are no inversions and at least you can see where you're going (unlike in Space Mountain). Overall it's more fun than scary, and you'll see kids as young as seven lining up to ride. The design is fabulous, too. The train rushes and rattles past 20 audio-animatronics figures -- including donkeys, chickens, a goat, and a grizzled old miner surprised in his bathtub -- as well as $300,000 worth of genuine antique mining equipment, tumbleweeds, a derelict mining town, hot springs, and a flash flood.

The ride was 15 years in the planning and took two years and close to $17 million to build. This 1979 price tag, give or take a few million, equaled the entire cost of erecting California's Disneyland in 1955. The 197-foot mountain landscape is based on the wind-swept scenery of Arizona's Monument Valley, and thanks to 650 tons of steel, 4,675 tons of concrete, and 16,000 gallons of paint, it replicates the area's gorges, tunnels, caverns, and dry river beds.

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