Rollercoaster Mine

"Laddie, we're usin' the centripetal force from the loop-the-loop to separate the lighter rock from the denser ore."

"I reckon you're all ready to take a nice, easy tour of this here ol' mine. Ohhhh, they fixed it up real nice and safe for ya, heh heh heh! 'Cept that you ain't goin' there, noooo! You're gonna see MY kinda mine! Ah ha ha ha ha! If you can! Just try and come back alive! Ah ha ha ha haaaa!!"

— Evil tour guide, Devil's Mine Ride

A staple in Western movies along with a couple Adventure films, the Rollercoaster Mine is a mountain railway used as a roller coaster. Mining trolleys roll at high speed down impractically steep and seemingly frictionless rails that weave in and out of an improbably long chain of tunnels, and often across bridges. Sometimes, they'll even do jumps. Works great for a Chase Scene.

Surprisingly often, a mine cart full of protagonists that's been rolling downhill at great speed for a couple of minutes will suddenly break through a nailed-together criss-cross of old boards, and burst out on the surface. If this phenomenon can be harnessed, it will provide the world with infinite energy. Of course, they may have started at a higher altitude, or something.

Theme Park Landscape is the supertrope. Minecart Madness is a Video Game-specific subtrope.

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Examples:

Anime & Manga

• The Pokémon: The Original Series episode "Island of the Giant Pokémon". Justified in that it's actually a theme park, though no one realizes this during the main course of the episode.
• In JoJo's Bizarre Adventure, Joseph Joestar makes ingenious use of the trope.

Comic Books

• Carl Barks's "Land Beneath the Ground". Many other Disney Mouse and Duck Comics too.
• Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves – The Feast of the Moon: The heroes find themselves riding a mine cart down a number of twisty slopes in order to escape the dracolich's lair. They assume the tracks will go to the river, but they're actually unfinished and so they end up flying and landing in the river.
• Lucky Luke: In The Ballad of the Daltons, an old gold digger rigs his mine into one of these as a trap for the Daltons.

Films — Animation

• In Castle in the Sky, the pirates' car chases an engine on the elevated track over a mining town.
• Home on the Range has this when they capture Alameda Slim.
• In Hoodwinked!, Red Puckett and the Wolf come close to encountering each other in a gold mine with roller coaster-type mine tracks.
• Replace the mine cars and tracks with bare-assed sliding through ice tunnels, and you've got the cavern scenes from Ice Age.
• The Jungle Bunch 2017 movie has the whole gang on a Bamboo Technology minecart chasing after a trail of exploding mushrooms under the jungle.
• Lucky Luke animated movies:
  • La Ballade des Dalton (1978): The Daltons try to find an old-timer by climbing into a mine-cart and have a rollercoaster ride complete with Averell getting somehow some cotton-candy.
  • Lucky Luke: Go West! (Tous à l'Ouest, 2007) has probably the most ludicrous example, with a very lengthy sequence featuring a good dozen of carts all full of people chasing after the Daltons in an incredibly large mine with complex railways that would put to shame any modern rollercoaster, fully crashing into Bizarrchitecture and Gravity Screw at times.
• My Little Pony: The Movie (2017): Capper guiding the Mane Six through Klugetown includes a short ride on a mine cart, including a jump above a broken part of the rails.
• Odyssey into the Mind's Eye has a segment in "Volatile Planet" in which the camera perspective rides a mining cart traveling chaotically through a mining facility. Built inside an active volcano. This bizarre case is semi-justified by reality; the segment in question is the video half of an actual theme park ride.
• A unused scene that didn't make it past the Storyboard for Shrek had Shrek, Donkey, and Fiona end up on a mine cart ride full of references to Disneyland rides.
• In Tiny Toon Adventures: How I Spent My Vacation, Babs, Buster and company go through a literal example of these, complete with a shopping mall AND the theme park Happy World Land, all while being chased by a Jason Voorhees ripoff with a chainsaw.

Films — Live-Action

• Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom is the Trope Codifier, its famous minecart scene is the inspiration for most other examples on this page (with the scene even using some of the sound effects from Big Thunder Mountain Railroad). Though they weren't the first ones to do it; see the first Lucky Luke example above.
• Journey to the Center of the Earth (2008) has one — in 3-D, no less.
• The 2001 German western parody Der Schuh des Manitu / Manitou's Shoe
• In the ending of 101 Dalmatians (1996), Roger designs a video game about dalmatian puppies riding a mine cart and fighting Cruella as the final boss.

Literature

• Rowley Jefferson's Awesome Friendly Adventure: In Rowley's story, Roland and his friends have to escape a group of angry dwarves in a mine by riding in some mine carts until the tracks abruptly end and throw them over the edge. Aiming to make the book Merchandise-Driven, Greg loves this part because he thinks it would make a good roller coaster in a theme park.

Live-Action TV

• Opening titles to the fourth series of GamesMaster.
• The entire theme of the bonus stage of the long-running Japanese game show Nep League. At 5 different junctures, the team gets a trivia question and leans the cart left or right (or neither in the Hyper variant) to answer. A correct answer moves them further down the cave (in later years, a jungle for questions 3/4), and 5 consecutive correct answers nets the team a ¥1 million bonus. One wrong answer, though, and it's a long way down.

Pinballs

• The "Escape in the Mine Cart" Video Mode in Indiana Jones: The Pinball Adventure.

Podcasts

• The climax of The Adventure Zone: Balance's The Eleventh Hour arc has Tres Horny Boys and Roswell racing down mineshafts while pursued by a colossal purple worm.

Theme Parks

• The page quote is from a motion simulator ride called The Devil's Mine which is based on this trope.
• Cedar Point's Cedar Creek Mine Ride is actually one of the tamer coasters at the park, and favored by riders who aren't quite up to Millennium Force or Top Thrill Dragster.
• Disney Theme Parks:
  • Big Thunder Mountain Railroad is built around this trope. Indeed, this is a not-uncommon type of roller coaster.
  • Indiana Jones et le Temple du Péril^note Indiana Jones and the Temple of Peril at Disneyland Paris and Raging Spirits at Tokyo DisneySea also qualify. The former was distinctly inspired by and themed as a Indiana Jones ride, while the latter is a generic temple, despite being right next to the Indiana Jones Adventure ride in that park.
  • The Seven Dwarfs Mine Train coaster in the Magic Kingdom at Walt Disney World takes guests through the Seven Dwarfs' mine.
• Europa-Park:
  • "Alpenexpress Enzian", the first rollercoaster to be built in the park (in 1984). The mine that speeding train goes through is named "The Magical World of Diamonds" and features dwarves and Clockwork Creatures, a dragon most notably. The area is shared with a log ride and there's a walking path inside as well (the latter leads to a jewelry shop).
  • Shows up in the first of the 4D Ed films, Das Geheimnes von Schloss Balthasar.
• Part of Arthur, l'Aventure 4D at the Futuroscope involves a Rollercoaster Mine. The rest of the time, this simulator ride invokes flying instead.
• The Runaway Mine Train ride at Alton Towers uses this theme, and as of 2013 is the oldest roller coaster still operating at the park.
• Colorado Adventure at Phantasialand, Germany, is the park's oldest coaster and features tours through dark mines at high speeds.

Video Games

• LEGO Indiana Jones has one of these since the game covers the first three Indiana Jones movies.
• Reverend Ray has an option of riding a cart in the mine level of Call of Juarez.
• Mario Kart Wii has "Wario's Gold Mine," a track set in one of these. You have to dodge loaded mine carts filled with gold. If you follow the carts and are careful not to touch them, you might find a shortcut. This track was remade for Mario Kart 8 as Downloadable Content.
• Minecraft allows you to build these, and at one point the front page of its website touted this as a major selling point. Yogscast Minecraft Series Shadow of Israphel provides a good example, with Knight_Peculier dying in one.
• Numerous levels in Donkey Kong Country.
• The final challenge in the Nancy Drew game Last Train To Blue Moon Canyon.
• This is a recurring level theme in the Sonic The Hedgehog series.
  • Sonic the Hedgehog 2 for the Master System/Game Gear has Underground Zone.
  • Sonic Rivals 2 has Frontier Canyon.
  • The last portion of Rocky Ridge in Sonic Free Riders consists of this. Interestingly, the mine carts go faster than the hoverboards they're racing on.
• Myst:
  • The underground coaster maze in Selentic age.
  • Also, one mode of transport in Riven is by mine cart.
• RollerCoaster Tycoon: Since several rollercoasters in real life are designed to look like this this trope, there's several rollercoaster designs available like this.
• Duke Nukem Forever has a brief Rollercoaster Mine sequence near the end of its Wild West section.
• Dwarf Fortress, once minecarts were added. Minecarts can be pushed along manually or mechanically, controlled with automated doors and improvised "switches", they activate Pressure Plate and accelerate when rolling down ramps, derail and re-rail easily and achieve velocity allowing them to skiprock over water or magma. They can carry (and auto-dump) water or magma after being submerged in liquids. Hurl contents upon a sudden stop. And so on. Tracks are auto-marked as low traffic area, but this only discourages dwarves from getting there if they have other choice and doesn't affect other critters at all... no cow-catchers, either.
• Rail Chase is entirely this. An actual roller coaster based on the game was one of the attractions at the short-lived Sega World theme park.
• Pajama Sam No Need To Hide When It's Dark Outside plays this straight. Good thing King, the resident living mine cart, knows how to get around the place without hurting Sam.
• Each of the worlds in Yooka-Laylee has a mine cart section where you ride in Kartos, dodging enemies and collecting gems.
• DuckTales has some rides, primarily in Transylvania. Naturally they were retained and even made mandatory in the remake.
• The Dead Mines: A lighter example since the player character doesn't ride it, but he does push a minecart down a long, winding track in order to crash it into rubble blocking a collapsed tunnel.
• Tail Concerto: Whoever designed the mine cartrails at Ferzen must've had a bit too much fun, as they'll take Waffle all around the mines with loop-de-loops and massive dips. There's even a section where you ride an unfinished railway and must jump to a nearby cart in order to access the next area. Keep in mind, all of this is over a bottomless pit, but at least falling won't instantly kill you.
• Crash Bandicoot: The Wrath of Cortex has some levels with such minecart rails. They contain bridges, jumps and mainly explosive crates that have to be evaded by tilting minecart on one side. And one level is essentially a mincart race with all of the above.
• My Little Pony (Gameloft): The Crystal Mine minigame has you ride in a mine cart at breakneck speeds, avoiding Diamond Dogs and Shadowbolts and jumping to collect coins, shards, and gems.
• Club Penguin: "Cart Surfer" has your penguin ride in a fast mine cart while doing tricks to earn points.

Web Comics

• Deliberately (and emphatically) averted in a strip from Chasing the Sunset strip.
• Played straight in Our Little Adventure as the cart Julie and her group rides on does steep drops and even loops. The cart does jumps as well, though this is accomplished with a wand they picked up as treasure earlier.
• A sequence from Wapsi Square starts this way, although the cart ends up way outside the mine.
• Ally, Reece and Sheila of At Arm's Length getting into one of these during the "Powder Keg" storyline, complete with a running battle with enemies in other carts.

Web Videos

• In Journey of the Cartoon Man, Roy and Valerie arrive at Oswald Sherzikien's castle in a very roller coaster-esque mine cart. It even plays a safety spiel before it starts rolling.

Western Animation

• Hanna-Barbera's The Adventures of Gulliver episode "The Hero". After Captain Leech kidnaps Flirtacia, the other Lilliputians follow him into a mine. They end up pursuing him with both parties traveling in mine carts.
• There's a brief minecart pursuit in the 1973/74 Superfriends episode "The Planet Splitter" when Doctor LeBon's assistant Wilbur tries to escape through subterranean coal mine tunnels.
• One of the Raceworld zones in the Kerwhizz episode "Wild West World" features an abandoned mine, through which the racers are pursued by what they think are bandits in a mine cart.
• In the Family Guy episode, "The Courtship of Stewie's Father", Peter is rescuing Stewie from Disney World employees and they hop on an Indiana Jones-themed minecart ride (complete with Peter in Indy's regalia).
• My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic has gotten in on the fun, in "A Canterlot Wedding".
• Fievel's American Tails features an improbable roller coaster mine track in the episode "The Lost Mother Lode", which after going through huge drops and loops ends in a mud puddle.
• The Secret Saturdays: Zak and Drew chase Argost through a rollercoaster mine in "Into the Mouth of Darkness".
• In Wakfu, the Brâkmarian transport system involves a mine cart dragged on top of a quite high rollercoaster, before letting it go.
• Subverted in The Owl House episode "Eclipse Lake". King was looking forward to a mine cart Chase Scene, but Kikimora's group trying to ride a mine track at high speed simply causes their cart to derail.
  King: Guess mine cart chases are a lot more dangerous than video games make them seem.

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"Well I'll be! You made it through! You're the first to come back alive in a long time! Wait...You wanna see it again? Huh?! Ah ha ha ha ha ha!"

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