Silver Dollar City is putting $150 million behind a new family roller coaster called Miner's Mountain Express, set to open in spring 2027 as the longest family roller coaster in the Midwest, spanning about half a mile of track through a newly designated area of the Branson, Missouri park called Daredevil Pass. Riders as short as 39 inches tall can board with an adult, and the roughly three-minute, 18-second ride includes 15 airtime moments, two lift hills, and a plunge past a flooded mine shaft.
The coaster, first detailed by KSHB 41 Kansas City, is built by German manufacturer Mack Rides, the same company behind Silver Dollar City's $26 million spinning coaster Time Traveler in 2018, according to the Roller Coaster DataBase. The ride's steel track stretches 3,553 feet with a maximum height of 97 feet, and it will send riders through Daredevil Pass in mine cars alongside existing thrill rides Wildfire, Powder Keg: A Blast into the Wilderness, and American Plunge, per Wikipedia.
A True Ozarks Mining Story Behind the Ride
Miner's Mountain Express is based on a true Ozarks story tied to the mining of Marvel Cave, the natural wonder around which Silver Dollar City was originally built in 1960. The ride's storyline draws on the real 1880s Marble Cave Mining Company, whose prospectors searched for marble before discovering limestone and renaming the cavern Marvel Cave, woven together with lore about a fictional mining foreman named Jedidiah “Jed” Campbell, according to Silver Dollar City.
To reinforce that authenticity, the park is installing an actual 15-story mining headframe sourced from a working Missouri mine directly above the coaster track, the same source notes. Mining headframes were historically used to hoist miners and ore out of underground shafts, giving the new ride a physical structure lifted straight from real Ozarks mining history rather than a purely fabricated set piece.
Retiring a 33-Year Fan Favorite
The new coaster serves as a direct successor to Thunderation, Silver Dollar City's mine train coaster, which will permanently close on January 2, 2027. Thunderation has long been a staple for park visitors, underscoring the emotional stakes of swapping out a longtime attraction for something new.
Silver Dollar City's $30 million Fire in the Hole was the park's biggest investment in a single attraction to that point, an indoor family coaster built by Rocky Mountain Construction that opened in March 2024 as a rebuilt version of its 1972 predecessor, according to a Wikipedia summary of the project. Miner's Mountain Express dwarfs that price tag by five times over, signaling how much bigger the park's ambitions have grown in just three years.
Part of a $500 Million, Decade-Long Master Plan
The $150 million coaster project is one piece of a larger $500 million, 10-year master investment plan that Silver Dollar City announced in October 2024 to develop 1,200 acres adjacent to the park, according to the Springfield Business Journal. Opening alongside the coaster in 2027, the flagship 262-room Silver Dollar City Resort will feature views of Table Rock Lake, meeting space, indoor and outdoor pools, and a restaurant, per the same outlet's reporting on the resort's amenities.
Silver Dollar City is pairing the new resort with the coaster. Together, the resort and attraction represent a major new investment in the park's offerings.
What It Means for Branson's Tourism Economy
The resort and coaster give Silver Dollar City new ways to pursue multi-day visits. A resort built to keep families on-site overnight, paired with a coaster designed to be a signature draw, positions Silver Dollar City to capture more extended-stay spending directly.
With Thunderation's retirement date now set and Miner's Mountain Express slated to open in its place next spring, the park is asking longtime visitors to say goodbye to a three-decade fixture while betting that a mine-train ride built on real local history, backed by a headframe pulled from an actual Missouri mine, can carry that legacy forward.
