July 27, 2007: Passenger Train of the Disneyland & Santa Fe R.R.

[Werner Weiss]

This week, I've added the Passenger Train of the Disneyland & Santa Fe R.R.

Disneyland stopped using these passenger coaches in 1974—but passengers are occasionally still riding those "Disneyland & Santa Fe R.R." coaches in 2007, just not at Disneyland.

Link to Passenger Train at Yesterland.

Please discuss the article here.

[MasterGracey]

Another great article, Werner! I never quite realized there was a passenger train at Disneyland. Thanks for the history!

[Alchimedes]

Here is where they moved those Passenger cars. I'm sure Steve D. Can elaborate more. This is a great blog about the progress and process in restoring them.

[Steve DeGaetano]

Great article Werner, and great photos as well!

A quick correction: At the beginning, you state the passenger train was pulled by the C.K. Holliday (not really the Cyrus K. Holliday, although that's what the "C" stands for), and the Freight train by the Ripley. This operating scenario is actually reveresed--the Ripley most often pulled the yellow passenger cars, and the Holliday most often pulled the Freight Train. I say "most often" because there were occasions when the Ripley pulled the freight or the Holliday pulled the passenger coaches. It just wasn't too frequent--but I guess every "rule" was meant to be broken!

[Werner Weiss]

Originally Posted by Steve DeGaetano

A quick correction: At the beginning, you state the passenger train was pulled by the C.K. Holliday (not really the Cyrus K. Holliday, although that's what the "C" stands for), and the Freight train by the Ripley. This operating scenario is actually reveresed--the Ripley most often pulled the yellow passenger cars, and the Holliday most often pulled the Freight Train. I say "most often" because there were occasions when the Ripley pulled the freight or the Holliday pulled the passenger coaches. It just wasn't too frequent--but I guess every "rule" was meant to be broken!

Steve,

Thank you for catching that! I just corrected the article and uploaded the changes.

I wish I had your book "Welcome Aboard the Disneyland Railroad!" It would have made it much easier to do the research for this article. I'll add your book to my Amazon wish list.

It's great that you now contribute articles to MiceAge. I'm looking forward to your next one.

[Nautilus]

Fantastic article on my favorite attraction, the Disneyland Railroad! Great photos indeed! Though there is one typo that concerns me...

What about the original Freight Train? It’s still operating. The Freight Train was modified so that guests no longer sit in cattle cars. It’s one of the current excursion trains with bench seats facing into the park.

You have sit instead of stand in the second sentence. Just a small correction, no biggy. The passengers are sitting now, you can't stand, unless you want a conductor yelling at you!

Great article nonetheless!


Sam

[Werner Weiss]

Originally Posted by Nautilus

You have sit instead of stand in the second sentence. Just a small correction, no biggy. The passengers are sitting now, you can't stand, unless you want a conductor yelling at you!

Nautilus,

It's not a typo; it's just a bad choice of words on my part.

My intention was to say that the cattle cars were converted so that passengers no longer sit behind cattle car slats. But they still sit; they don't stand.

Thank you for the observation. I'll reword the sentence shortly.

[Steve DeGaetano]

Originally Posted by Werner Weiss

I wish I had your book "Welcome Aboard the Disneyland Railroad!" It would have made it much easier to do the research for this article. I'll add your book to my Amazon wish list.

It's great that you now contribute articles to MiceAge. I'm looking forward to your next one.

Thanks, Werner! Hopefully the next one will appear next week. I've got several more that are nearly finished, so I should be a little more "visible" as a columnist.

BTW, this having nothing to do with the present article, but "Yesterland" was basically the very first website I ever visited, back around, what, 1994 or so?

I remember using my dad's computer when I visited (I was too poor to have my own), clicking on a Yesterland image, and leaving the room to do something else as the image downloaded! Things sure have come a long way!

[Werner Weiss]

Originally Posted by Steve DeGaetano

BTW, this having nothing to do with the present article, but "Yesterland" was basically the very first website I ever visited, back around, what, 1994 or so?

That's close. The Grand Opening of Yesterland was May 20, 1995. That was before Disneyland had an official website.

Originally Posted by Steve DeGaetano

I remember using my dad's computer when I visited (I was too poor to have my own), clicking on a Yesterland image, and leaving the room to do something else as the image downloaded! Things sure have come a long way!

Your dad's modem was even slower than mine.

To make sure the pages would load fairly quickly, I limited pictures to a single 400x200 GIF image or two 200x200 GIF images. (I still have one page with such images, The A-B-C’s of Tickets, which I really need to update one of these days.) I didn't use JPEG/JPG images because only the very newest browsers supported them and because they decompressed too slowly on old computers.

Now I routinely include up to ten 588x441 JPEG/JPG images on a page.

[fkurucz]

I found the picture of the mystery family posing by the main entrance to very interesting. It must have been from DL's early days, as the entrance area looks very "low rent": the stained asphalt, chain link fence and the patch of grass seem very Six Flags.

[Cousin Orville]

Great article. As always. It would be fun to show the period ticket media that was special and unique to the Trains too. I can't imagine them tearing all those the checks off, as it seems more symbolic than practical.

[Steve DeGaetano]

Cousin, there were six "station stop" stubs on the adult ticket--including stubs for Holidayland and Adventureland--clearly lands with no stations. So no, the conductors didn't rush thought the six train cars punching the stubs of nearly 300 passengers in the time it takes to go from Main Street to Frontierland!

However--in addition to those six stubs, there was a final "conductor stub" or "conductor check." Once that single stub was removed, the ticket was returned to the passenger as a treasured souvenir.

If Werner doesn't beat me to it, perhaps we'll look at the various ticket media used throughout the years in a future article.

[The Disneylander]

Great article, as always. I've always wanted to go onboard the Lilly Belle, it looks awesome.

[Dr. Shrinker]

Excellent article!

But one (almost completely unrelated) question -- that 1962 map shows 2 streets leading into the park. Was there ever a second street besides Main Street?

[Werner Weiss]

Originally Posted by Dr. Shrinker

But one (almost completely unrelated) question -- that 1962 map shows 2 streets leading into the park. Was there ever a second street besides Main Street?

The 1962 map showed Liberty Street as a "future development." Access to Liberty Street would have been from Main Street's Town Square, as shown on the excerpt from the map in the Passenger Train article.

According to the map, Liberty Street would feature the U.S. Capitol in Miniature, the Hall of Presidents, the Declaration of Independence Diorama, Griffin's Wharf (with a permanently docked sailing ship), and various shops.