Santa Fe and Disneyland Railroad Articles
A Brief History Of Disneyland, An American Classic
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"The thing will get more beautiful year after year. And it will get better as I find out what the public likes; I can't do that with a picture it's finished and unchangeable before I find out whether the public likes it or not." Walt Disney on Disneyland. Walt Disney found different reasons to build his seventeen million dollar Magic Kingdom in Anaheim in 1955. The idea had originally stemmed ...
Walt's First Passion
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Since its opening in 1955, Disneyland has seen plenty of attractions come and go, but one has stood the test of time. The Disneyland Railroad was Walt's original idea and continues to be a favorite amongst guests. Long before Walt had the idea to create his magic kingdom, he developed a love for trains. "It started when he took his first job as a news bush, one of his first jobs, on the Santa Fe ...
All Aboard Disney's Fort Wilderness Railroad
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It's no secret that Walt Disney had a special place in his heart for railroads. Years before Disneyland opened, he built a model railroad in his backyard which he dubbed the Carolwood Pacific Railroad and spent countless hours riding it, tinkering with it and giving his family and friends much-coveted rides. When Disneyland opened in 1955, the narrow-gauge Santa Fe and Disneyland Railroad circled ...
California vs. Paris: The Railroads
This month, I shall be comparing the Railroads which circle the two Disneylands closest to my heart (California and Paris). Both versions were opening day attractions, although in Anaheim it was called the Santa Fe and Disneyland Railroad until 1974; in Paris, the attraction was known as Eurodisneyland Railroad up to 1994. The name change for the former was due to the end of the ride's sponsorship by ...
Women At Disneyland's 1st Day Return
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Mary Lechlitner and her daughter were among the first to ever ride the Disneyland train on the park's opening day on July 17, 1955. On Tuesday, the mother and daughter returned to sit in the train station to watch a ceremony commemorating the park's 57th birthday. Lechlitner, 96, said she's been at every Disneyland birthday celebration. Her daughter, Kathy Parks, 71, has joined her for major ...
Disneyland Memorabilia Is A Fascinating Look Back
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Of the millions and millions of phone numbers that have been in use since Alexander Graham Bell (or Antonio Meucci, if you're so inclined) invented the telephone, a handful of numbers have managed to live on despite the passage of time ... and the introduction of more numbers and area codes. "PEnnsylvania 6-5000," a hit song by Glenn Miller and his orchestra in the 1940s, comes to mind, as does the ...
Disneyland A New Wonder Of The Amusement World Nears Completion
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A wonderland of delights such as the World may never have seen before is rising out of the orange groves in this sunny suburb of Los Angeles. It is Disneyland, a 17 million dollar paradise for children. When the gates are opened on July 19, customers will see an amusement built on the scale of a World's Fair. The fantastic world of Disney films will be transformed into three dimensional reality. ...
Disneyland Gates Open Celebrity Throng At Premier
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Disneyland, a $17,000,000 fairyland dedicated to the pleasure of children, opened Sunday in a special preview of 35,000 invited guests whose enthusiasm indicated that Walt Disney's dream had lived up to expectations. The spectacular park will be opened officially to the public at 10 a. m. today and upward of 50,000 persons are expected for the event. Sunday the adults - members of the press from ...
Tom Sawyer Comes To Disneyland
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Disneyland is now past the half-way point in a spring construction program that will add 1 1/2 million dollars in new rides and amusements to Walt Disney's Magic Kingdom in Anaheim. Major areas of activity are Frontierland and the Tom Sawyer Island in the Rivers of America. More than $250,000 is being spent to make the island a "playland out of a youngster's dream." On the island -- named for and ...
5 Millionth Visitor At Disneyland
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Four-year-old Debra Rutherford knew Disneyland was going to be wonderful. When she arrived Wednesday it exceeded her wildest dreams. It was her insistence -- and that of her 3-year-old sister Patricia-that convinced their parents, Mr. and Mrs. W. L. Rutherford, to travel from their home in Quincy, Wash. They reached Los Angeles Wednesday morning and drove straight to Disneyland. When Debra ...
Indonesian President Sukarno Visits Disneyland
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President Sukarno of Indonesia dropped the cares of state Thursday to laugh and relax at Disneyland. Like any other father, Indonesian's chief kept one eye on the sights and the other on his 12-your-old son, Guntur. For President Sukarno the visit to Disney's playground was in contrast to the carefully planned high level talks and diplomatic discussions that discussions that head his list of ...
He Spent 21 Million Dollars Just For Fun
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Last week the 9,474,254th visitor walked through the gates of Disneyland since they were opened July 18, 1955. And just for fun-that these visitors might have the time of their lives - $21 millions have been spent on the fabulous playground at Anaheim by its creator, Walt Disney. That's not all. Says Disney: "Disneyland never will be completed. . . . It will continue to grow, to add new ...
Whats All This Jazz At Disneyland
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The "saints" are all ready to come marching in-at Disneyland, and when they arrive Saturday, Oct. 1, the most unique combination of Walt Disney pageantry and Dixieland jazz ever presented west of New Orleans will take over the Magic Kingdom. Called "Dixieland and at Disneyland," the spectacular will mark the first time in the Southland that a show has ever been presented in a setting that turns the ...
Growth Of Disneyland Expected To Continue
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"Disneyland will continue to grow, to add new things as long as there is imagination left in the world." So said Walt Disney when the world famous amusement park opened in 1955. Disneyland has been growing ever since. Since the facility opened in Anaheim 11 years ago, it has doubled its number of attractions and drawn more than 50 million visitors. When it opened, Disneyland ...
Disneyland Train Marks Anniversary
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Marking first anniversary of operation is one of the world most novel railroads, the 5/8-scale Santa Fe and Disneyland which is a feature of Walt Disney's magic kingdom near Anaheim. The tiny railroad began operations in mid-July, 1955, with two trains. Since then an estimated 1,500,000 adults and children have viewed Disneyland in striking perspective from the perimeter of the 60-acre park. The ...
Trip To Disneyland Will Be Literally Out Of This World
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For vacationers, week end travelers or plain Sunday drivers a tour through Disneyland Park in Anaheim which opens tomorrow will be a trip that is almost literally out of this world playground officials said today. Because, behind the high embankment that shuts in the heart-shaped park and shuts long present day cares, there are "new worlds" of enchantment serving up fun for all kinds and ages of ...
This Is How Disneyland Looked In 1955
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When Disneyland opened on July 17, 1955, there were sections of it that were not done. A reporter noticed all the construction still ongoing and asked Walt Disney if Disneyland would ever be finished. Disney replied in what has become an oft quoted quote: "Disneyland will never be completed, as long as there is imagination left in the world." Disney was true to his word - Disneyland has never been ...
This Is How Disneyland Changed From 1956 To 1959
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The day after Disneyland opened on July 17, 1955, many newspapers had a field day with the myriad of problems the park had, such as gas leaks, failing plumbing and a lack of drinking fountains. Some called it Walt's Folly and more. But that didn't seem to matter to the public because when the park opened its gates the next day, there was a long line of people waiting to get in - and the lines never ...
This Is How Disneyland Looked In The 1970s
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The seventies at Disneyland started with an invasion, then went into space, and ended with a wild ride in the frontier. Unfortunately for Disneyland, the riots that had been happening in cities across America during the latter half of the sixties and some of the protesters turned their attention to Walt Disney's Magic Kingdom. On Aug. 6, 1970, the Yippies (an offshoot of the hippies of the sixties) ...
Disney Dedicated His 308 Foot Wide Grand Canyon Diorama
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Disney, dedicated his 308 feet-wide Grand Canyon Diorama largest in the world, at Disneyland, on a very rainy for California day, to the damp delight of 80 odd rain soaked newsmen. Speech by the Santa Fe Railroad's Fred Curley for whom Walt named the engine of his new excursion train through Disneyland, was rained out (or down?) to a mere "Thank you very much, Walt." Following which, some Indian ...
River Boat Ride Tops At Disneyland
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The jungle boat trip through the "Rivers of the World" in adventureland has been the most popular attraction this year at Disneyland, originator Walt Disney disclosed today. As attendance at the $23,600,000 playground passed the 13,000,000 mark in its third year of operation, visitors gave their second largest patronage to the frontierland ships "Mark Twain" and "Columbia" Disney said. Next in ...
Magic Kingdom One Year After
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Above is pictured Disneyland as it looks today, some 14 months after the Grand Opening, of July 18, 1955. In that brief span of time the Anaheim Magic Kingdom has come to rank as the number one visitor attraction in the United States. It is expected that the Park will great its five millionth-visitor sometime during the current month. The now familiar "heart" shape of Disneyland makes it easy for the ...
New Pact Ups Disney To 3500 Weekly
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Walt Disney's new seven-year pact as exec producer and general supervisor of Disneyland will be voted upon by Disney stockholders May 16 meeting in Burbank. According to proxies sent stockholders yesterday, new deal has already been approved by Bank of America, National Trust Savings Assn., and Prudential Insurance Co. of America, from whom Disney company has made substantial loans. Under terms ...
Jungle Trips Draw Crowds
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Disneyland officials report that 2,084,189 persons enjoyed Adventureland's jungle river cruise during the first year of operation. Runners-up were the Mark Twain with 1,318,926 passengers; the Santa Fe and Disneyland Passenger Train with 1,143,959; and Snow White Ride with 1,021,976 adventurers. It was pointed out, however, that the popularity of individual attractions cannot be judged by the number ...
Disneyland And Imagineering Part 13
Disneyland, the idea, came from the mind of Walt Disney, but Disneyland, the theme park, was a collaborative effort. It took a great many men and women to create it. Since all men are created equal, everyone who contributed should be credited. I've known about C.V. Wood for many years, and although he was not an Imagineer, he was a land developer who made significant contributions in terms of sales and ...
Every Town USA
The final stop on my lovely tour of Disneyland, at least until "Star Wars Land" is completed, is the entrance to the entire park. Said to be inspired by Walt's hometown of Marceline, Missouri, "Main Street, U.S.A" is designed to look like the idealized center of a town at around 1910. One of the designers, Harper Goff, showed Walt some pictures of his childhood home in Colorado and Walt liked the ...
Walt Disney First Love Lives On At This Historic California Ranch
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The steam-powered train rounds the bend, passing a rolling meadow dusted with wildflowers and dotted by oak and sycamore trees. The vintage locomotive is pulling two passenger cars around a two-mile loop at Santa Margarita Ranch in San Luis Obispo County, a roughly 15,000-acre property settled by Franciscan missionaries in 1774. But these carriages once had a very different home about 250 miles ...
It's A Cool World After All
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A major upgrade to chilled-water systems at Disneyland is improving cooling capacity, increasing flexibility and reducing energy costs at the world-famous Southern California theme park. The project included updating equipment in the 85-acre park's two 30-year old chiller plants and drawing together the two formerly separate plants to allow load sharing. Because the plants were constructed ...
Reflections From The Road: The Search For Main Street USA
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In July of 1995, I arrived in downtown Fort Collins, Colo., in search of clues to answer the questions that I always ask as a historical geographer: How and why did the townsfolk design and locate buildings, streets, and open spaces as they did? How did the resulting landscape fit into the broader pattern of the region and nation? Since I am especially interested in how downtowns develop personalities ...
Magic Worlds Of Walt Disney
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Disneyland really started more than 20 years ago, when Walt got the idea for an amusement park that grownups as well as children would enjoy. "I had all my drawing things laid out at home, and I'd work on plans for the park, as a hobby, at night." At the time, amusement parks were dying all over the country, "I talked Disneyland but no one could see it," Walt recalled. "So I went ahead and spent my ...
Onward And Upward With The Arts
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One day last year in Los Angeles, as I was about to step aboard a helicopter that would take me to Disneyland with my teen-aged son and daughter, these two, smiling wanly, nodded toward a tourist poster that gave equal billing to our destination and to Forest Lawn cemetery. Their gesture reminded me that in earlier years they had wasted hundreds of child-hours vainly urging me to bring them on this very ...
