Well, my girlfriend is a huge Disney-phile, so we spent last week at Disney World in FL. I was happy to find an operating NG steam railroad circling the park...yeah, they have circus clown paint jobs and there's not a lump of coal in sight (I understand they're running on used fryer oil!) but these have to be some of the busiest steam engines anywhere! I didn't find out till we got there that you can actually take a steam shop tour....unfortunately it was booked for the time we were there. Has anybody taken this tour? Did I miss something good?
There's some You Tube videos out there shot by visitors to the Disney railroad at WDW in Florida, including the shop tour. They're actually quite well done. I don't remember the names given to said videos but I'm sure you can find them by internet search without too much difficulty.
I have taken the tour and it is excellent. The shop area is interesting, and is combined with the monorail shop.
Walt was a major train buff and I recall reading about him and Ward Kimball's backyard railroad in Trains many years back.
To say Walt was a major railfan is putting it mildly. When Disneyland, and then Disney World were built Walt insisted on circling both with railroads, and insisted they be live steam, no steam-profile fakeroos.
The locomotives were aquired from Central and South American narrow-gauge lines and no expense was spared in the rebuilds. The color schemes may be a bit too colorful (although not unusual for 19th Century steamers) but at least they're the real deal.
Thanks Walt!
Man, doesn't Ike look thrilled to be in the cab of a live steamer! Grandson David looks a little PO'd he's not up there too.
I wonder if they let Ike run it?
Both Fess Parker and Davy Crockett were there? Hmmm...
Hmmm indeed. Note also the reporter's reference to the site having once been an "orange ranch." Would have been interesting to be there at round-up time to see them corraling all those grazing globes of citrus.
Being raised on a ranch means that they weren't free range oranges. Poor little guys.
If GM "killed the electric car", what am I doing standing next to an EV-1, a half a block from the WSOR tracks?
Local supermarket's selling free-range eggs now. I think it's a bit irresponsible to let 'em run around loose like that, who knows what mischief they'll get into?
Firelock76 Local supermarket's selling free-range eggs now. I think it's a bit irresponsible to let 'em run around loose like that, who knows what mischief they'll get into?
Egg-saxtley!
Punny!
Never too old to have a happy childhood!
Talking about going the eggs-tra mile.......(Groan)
Orange you glad I didn't make any egg jokes? As Mike Wallace said on 60 minutes many years ago regarding the "chicken and egg" controversy, "A chicken is an egg's way of making another egg." I'll stop now.
Getting back to original question a bit, I took the special tour 6-7 years ago and found it quite interesting. We spent a little time at the shops, but not a lot. The steam shop was essentially under the Monorail shop. We did get a ride around the park and a lot information on operations. In addition we got to have our picture taken with the train while standing on Disney grass. (I understand it's very rare that visitors are allowed to statnd on grass in the Disney parks)
This is a very real railroad that operates I think 4 steam locomotives, (usually not all at once). As a C&S person I was suprised to see they had a block signaling system and cab signals on the locomotives. Also interesting that they have to make provisions for resting the crews regularly because of working in the heat of the cab during a Floriday summer.
It was certainly interesting and worthwhile for me.
Stephen
In California a farm is called a ranch. It has nothing to do with livestock.
I grew up in Orange (yes, Orange) County, CA, when there was still abundant citrus production happening both there and in neighboring Riverside County. Everybody in the area, especially those employed in harvesting, packing, and shipping (including Sunkist itself), referred to the treed properties where citrus is grown as "groves" (orange groves, lemon groves, even a broad reference to citrus groves). Sometimes the term would be "orchard," but that's more often applied to apples or cherries. Soft crops grown on the ground such as strawberries and tomatoes were referred to as "fields" rather ranches or farms. At least in that part of SoCal. Ag terminology in central or northern parts of CA might very well be different. All of this reminds me of the time I wrote a piece for Trains that made mention of SP's ice decks, and the editors changed it to read "ice docks." May have seemed like the right move to them coming from the Midwest, but it was the wrong move in terms of proper SP nomenclature in the Golden State.
When I was living in Thousand Oaks (Ventura County), the stands of walnut trees and orange trees were also referred to as groves. Sad part was that the groves that were there in 1958 were largely gone when the family moved away in 1965. OTOH, the fields of Lima beans are still present in the area bounded by Pt Mugu, Camarillo and Oxnard.
Small world (no Disney pun intended). Before we settled in El Toro (now Lake Forest) some time around the early 70s, we lived a couple years in Thousand Oaks, and also up north of the Bay Area in Novato. Don't recall much of the ag scene in Thousand Oaks, other than my dad mentioning Joel McCrea's ranch being somewhere beyond the rocky hills north of our house. However, I do recall seeing the types of farm fields you describe when we drove to see my grandparents in Santa Barbara. Novato was full of walnut and plum trees. Had a few in our backyard which left quite a mess on the patio. Lived close to several farms in northern New Jersey where corn, pumpkins, chickens, and dairy were the business, and the past 20 years have been in Post Falls, Idaho, where we're surrounded by farms raising wheat, alfalfa, mint, carrots, potatoes, along with a couple of small cattle ranches. If there's one thing, one line of work, one lifestyle I appreciate as much as railroading, it's agriculture.
As for Disneyland itself, I can relate to the O.P. in that one girlfriend back in the day shared my joy of visiting that park, and in particular riding the train around the whole thing, especially after dark. Watching those functional signals change color as the steam power passed it was almost equal to the drama of watching signals change from a dome seat on the Coast Starlight.
In the classic W.C. Fields movie, "It's a Gift," it's referred to as an orange grove. The only railroad reference is in the Carl Lafong scene:
Insurance salesman- "He's a railroad man and he has to get up early"
W.C.- "Well, he's a chump."
Bruce,
Wonder what part of T.O. you lived in. I lived on Arcturus Street about a block east of Moorpark Rd and just south of Los Arbelos - when the family first moved there, the area around Los Arbelos was still covered with groves. My dad was one of the original faculty at CLC and I have memories of when the chicken coops before they became classrooms.
As for Disney's RR's, there's a new book our written by Dana Amendola about Disney and the RR's. Along with the locomotives at the various parks, the book also mentions Disney's backyard live steam "layout" along with the 3ft lines of Ward Kimball and Ollie Johnston. For Ward's collection, he did mention that most of it ended up at OERM - I spent about a year of weekends in 1991-92 helping out on finishing up the "Grizzly Flats Enginehouse.
The Grand Canyon Diorama is the highlight of the DRR for me.
A final note, Main Street in Disneyland is one of the very few places where you can ride a horse drawn streetcar.
At first, we lived for just a few months at the east end of Calle Contento, near the intersection with Olsen Road. I was less than 10 years old, but my parents allowed me to wander around by myself or with a friend or two into those hills and rock formations right behind our house. Different era than today. Then again, the potential for encountering a predator with either two legs or four back in those days was probably quite real. Ignorance was bliss. We later moved to a nearby house on Calle Ruiz, staying there maybe a year or two.
That Main Street horsecar track fascinated me too. Spring switches at both ends, what a simple yet effective setup.
Neat! Back when I was in first grade, I'd be on the bus taking Moorpark Rd over the Norwegian grade on the way to Santa Rosa elementary, then Conejo Valley School district boundaries expanded so spent summer school at Waverly (which I think is where Kurt Russel attended elementary school), then spent 2nd and 3rd grade at a private school in Encino, 4th was Ladera and 5th was a brand spanking new University. I was kind of hoping to see if a 50th anniversary of that school opening would happen, but it got changed to a day care center before 2014.
One of my memories from growing up there was sneaking into the MGM backlot to check out the western sets with some friends, then getting old to leave by security (he was rather nice about it). My dad said that part of an episode of Rifleman was filmed across the street from our house and that he and my brother got to meet Chuck Connors.
Disney Horsecar: The cars are unfortunately rarely run, seems that first thing in the morning is the best time to catch them.
I saw a couple of books that covered the history and operation of the Disney railroads on amazon.
Doesn't Dollywood in Tennesse have a steam railroad? Has anyone been? Is it like Walt's?
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