The Excavator

The Excavator was an unbuilt wooden rollercoaster attraction for Dinoland USA at Disney's Animal Kingdom

Summary
During Animal Kingdom's development, DinoLand was to be anchored by two thrill attractions: Countdown to Extinction and a wooden rollercoaster called the Excavator.

The Excavator was to be an extension of The Boneyard Playground's setting, being the rickety remains of an ore car track left over from when the Boneyard was an ordinary gravel quarry before the fossil discoveries. Since then, some of the Dino Institute's students have decided to turn the ore car system into a ride to amuse themselves and the visitors, as well as put the ore cars back into service to transport fossil specimens. Guests would pass by numerous, ignored old signs warning about the stability of the ore car system before arriving at load. While moving along the track, guests would pass through ribcages of dinosaur skeletons and zoom past mechanical dinosaur scuptures built by the students from old construction equipment and junk.

Due to the rising costs of constructing the facilities for the park's live animals, the Excavator was cancelled after Countdown to Extinction was deemed enough to anchor DinoLand on opening day. A rollercoaster would eventually come to DinoLand in the form of the Primeval Whirl attraction at Chester and Hester's Dino-Rama.