WALT’S TRAINS

Musings of a Disney Railroad Fan

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PASSENGER TRAIN AT FRONTIERLAND WATER TOWER

The Santa Fe & Disneyland passenger train makes a stop for water in Frontierland as she carries passengers on a scenic journey around the Magic Kingdom.

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“Hello, folks! Welcome aboard the Disneyland Railroad! We’re now embarking on a grand circle tour of the Magic Kingdom, with stops at New Orleans Square, Mickey’s Toontown, and Tomorrowland—followed by a visit to the Grand Canyon and Primeval World. We got a lot of travelin’ ahead of us, so remember: for a safe trip, you need to stay seated, keeping your hands, arms, feet, and legs inside the train. And please, watch your children.”

Most of us Disneyland Railroad fans can recite the Main Street Depot speil by heart, but did you know that the operation of the railroad was much different in 1955 than what we are familiar with today. Walt Disney wanted his new park railroad to operate in a prototypical manner and had Imagineer Roger Broggie hire highly experienced railroad builder Earl Vilmer to come up with a plan. In the first year there were only two trains, the Retlaw 1 (“Walter” backwards)  passenger train pulled by locomotive E.P. Ripley that only stopped the Main Street USA Depot, and Retlaw 2 freight train pulled by locomotive C.K. Holliday that only stopped at Frontierland Station. Each train made a complete non-stop tour of the Park and in order to operate simultaneously Vilmer created passing tracks at each of the two stations. The passenger train consist included six custom made coach cars. The freight train consist included open gondola cars and cattle cars that required passengers to stand through the complete journey. By 1957 the Disneyland Railroad was becoming overwhelmed by ever increasing crowds and a third train was needed. Rather than building a locomotive from scratch, Disney rebuilt an existing Baldwin loco and put it into service as Fred Gurley along with five new open air excursion cars with front facing bench seats designed by Bob Gurr and built at Walt Disney Studios. Almost immediately it was determined that a fourth train was needed to handle the crowds and a search started to locate a potential locomotive for rebuilding. Walt’s original intention of prototypical operation was no longer practical and by1959 up to four trains operated daily in a block system on a single track each stopping at all of the stations in traditional amusement park fashion. In order to have sufficient space for New Orleans Square, the track on the western edge of it’s route was expanded outwards in1962 and the Frontierland Depot and water tower were moved to their current location on the other side of the tracks (and the fortunate people in the cattle cars were allowed to sit down!).