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Will It Go Round in Circles (continued)
Roll-up doors concealed each stall, and each track was numbered, 1 through 4. Over
each track, red and green lamps gave notice as to whether a train would be moving.
Here is the Disneyland roundhouse as it looks today. The converted golf cart is
a "speeder"
used to traverse the mainline for inspection purposes. Photo courtesy Preston
Nirattisai.
To ease maintenance, pits were built between the rails so
mechanics could step under the iron horses, while still standing upright. On
track 1, a "drop-table" was installed. This way, the large and heavy drive
wheels of a locomotive could be removed by lowering them away from the engine
frame, and sliding them out laterally (the alternative could be to raise the
locomotive high enough to roll the wheels out—a more difficult procedure
without benefit of a crane). A small work area, restrooms and office completed
the new facility.
An open roundhouse stall. The yellow flooring is a removable plank that
covers the inspection pit between the rails. Photo courtesy Preston Nirattisai.
The new roundhouse could comfortably accommodate four
locomotives complete with train sets. But when built, Disneyland had five
sets of cars! Where was this fifth set of cars stored at night? Anecdotal
evidence suggests that one train set was stored in the Grand Canyon/Primeval
World Diorama every evening, but to date, no concrete evidence has turned up to
verify this theory.
Here is the basic floor plan of the Disneyland roundhouse. Drawing by Preston
Nirattisai (Text was replaced and enlarged for easier on-screen reading).
The atmosphere in the roundhouse is as comfortable as a well-worn t-shirt.
The mood is generally relaxed, the cast members affable. An appropriately boiler-shaped
barbecue grill sits near one of the open stalls, with a white "DRR"
stenciled on the lid. The crew occasionally fires up the grill for impromptu cookouts.
Near stall 1, a picnic table with umbrella provides a shady respite to enjoy lunch or a
cup of coffee. A new addition to the roundhouse staff, a black feral cat they've named
"Sylvester," can frequently be found napping on the wooden benches in the
coaches.
The Operating Engineers (or "O.E.s") who staff the roundhouse are responsible
not only for the upkeep of the trains, but also help to operate the Mark Twain, along with
maintaining the boat's boiler and steam systems.
Responsibilities for the roundhouse crew have run the gamut over the years, from the
earliest days when all the work—including assembling the first two steam engines and
rebuilding the second two—was performed on-site; to later, when heavier repair work was
outsourced to other vendors.
As with anything mechanical, "things" happen.
Some more serious than others.
The Disneyland Operating Engineers are more than up to the task of tackling
maintenance nightmares such as this: The Fred Gurley sheared a driver
off her axle in the 1980s.
In 1997, the locomotive E.P. Ripley was sent to a steam restoration facility in
Rhode Island, the Benson Mountain Co. The work performed there was not up to Disney's
expectations, and a lot of finger pointing—on both sides—resulted. When it was time for
the C.K. Holliday to undergo a complete rebuild from the ground up, it was decided
to let the roundhouse O.E.'s perform the work themselves. In addition to being able to make
sure the work was done properly, this also had a positive effect on morale. By all
accounts, the project was a success.
In 1999, a locomotive named Maud L. arrived at the Park—the end result
of a series of trades involving four of Disneyland's original passenger coaches.
The locomotive's restoration was initially to be handled in-house, but internal
management costs rose to the point that the project was in danger of being eliminated,
and was placed on indefinite hold. Eventually the project was farmed out to Boschan
Boiler and Restorations, Inc., in Carson California. Much of the final work, however,
took place in the Disney roundhouse.
Paul Boschan, in the cab, watches as the Ward
Kimball builds
up steam during the final days of her restoration in the
Disneyland roundhouse. Photo courtesy Preston Nirattisai.
Shortly thereafter, a firm in Ventura, California handled
the restoration of the Lilly Belle. Currently, Mission Tool in the Bay
Area was tasked with the completely disassembly of the Fred Gurley prior
to her complete overhaul.
The hiring of outside contractors should not reflect poorly
on the O.E.'s in any way. Even when contractors play a role, the Disneyland
Operating Engineers work closely with them, relying on their intimate knowledge
and understanding of the "Disney Way" to assist and assure the contractors
produce work that meets Disneyland's high standards.
So, what's a typical day like at the Disneyland Railroad roundhouse?
The day always begins early. As the sun slowly rises over a still-chilly
Southern California Sunday morning, the warm glow of the four open stalls of
the roundhouse beckons invitingly. The locomotives, sitting near the open front,
gleam and shine like precious jewels in their velvet-lined boxes. Each engine
has been uncoupled from its train, and sits a few feet in front of the first
passenger car on each train, waiting its turn to "steam up."
Scattered around the floor and walls of the roundhouse is the accumulated debris
of nearly 50 years of steam railroading. Over on one track, behind the caboose,
sits a freight car truck with no wheels. Almost hidden in one dark corner near
the Lilly Belle is a small pile of "polling pockets," — small steel
"dimples" fitted onto the bottom corners of the cars that allowed a
locomotive to push a car on a parallel track by inserting a large pole into
opposing pockets on car and engine. Though not a practice used on the Disneyland
Railroad, the pockets are nonetheless a detail that Disney refused to overlook.
In the opposite corner sit several leaf springs from the passenger car trucks
(wheel sets). One of the trucks sits on the rails nearby. Shorn of its coach
body, the truck appears unusually massive. Hanging at eye level from a roof
support are two spare Westinghouse locomotive air brake compressors. For an
operating stream locomotive roundhouse, the facility is meticulously clean.
An empty roundhouse track gives us a good look
at the interior. Photo courtesy Preston Nirattisai.
The first thing one notices when standing beside one of these stabled iron
horses is the utter silence that permeates their vicinity. The locomotives,
known to most guests as noisy, huffing, panting, throbbing machines when they
are out on the line, are as quiet as if they were sound asleep, which in essence
they are. Even the escape of steam through leaky safety valves is hardly audible,
the white wisps rising into the atmosphere before vanishing.
When the E.P. Ripley's original boiler was replaced in the late 1990s, the old
one was cut open so that the inner workings of a steam boiler could be
easier explained to new hires. Photo courtesy Preston Nirattisai.
When the trains are bedded down for the evening, the fires are extinguished
(or "dropped"), and the fire-breathing dragon that is the locomotive
begins to slumber and cool off. Crewmen on the late shift shut off the air
compressors and blowers and put the reverse lever in the center, neutral position.
Then the engine is quiet. When awakened the following morning, the engines still
retain some of their operating pressure, usually around 25 psi — down about a
hundred pounds from their normal operating pressure of 125 psi.
This morning, the pressure gauges on each of the three operating locomotives
now hover around 100 pounds, so the engines must have been in operation until
just a few hours ago. The tranquility is deceiving—the engines are still very much
fully operational, even though their silence tends to suggest otherwise.
As the morning proceeds, more people show up—shop cast members, costumed
engineers and firemen. Some help with steaming up the engines; others busy
themselves with polishing the shiny brass and steel trim on the locomotives.
Steaming-up a completely cold locomotive can take several hours, and is
a detailed process. We'll tell you all about it next time as we continue our visit
to the Disneyland Railroad Roundhouse.
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