Walt Disney World Railroad

Walt Disney World Railroad
The No. 2 Lilly Belle locomotive stopped at Fantasyland Station in Magic Kingdom.
Magic Kingdom
Coordinates	28.4163896°N 81.5811922°W / 28.4163896; -81.5811922 (Main Street, U.S.A. Station) (Main Street, U.S.A. Station) 28.4196350°N 81.5851371°W / 28.4196350; -81.5851371 (Frontierland Station) (Frontierland Station) 28.4211279°N 81.5782691°W / 28.4211279; -81.5782691 (Fantasyland Station) (Fantasyland Station)
Status	Operating
Opening date	October 1, 1971
Ride statistics
Attraction type	Railroad attraction
Manufacturer	Baldwin Locomotive Works
Designer	Retlaw Enterprises
Vehicles	4 steam locomotives 20 passenger cars
Riders per vehicle	375 per train
Duration	About 20:00
No. of tracks	Single
Track gauge	3 ft (914 mm)
Track length	1.5 miles (2.4 km)
Wheelchair accessible
Closed captioning available

The Walt Disney World Railroad (WDWRR) is a 3 ft (914 mm) narrow gauge heritage railroad and attraction in the Walt Disney World Resort's Magic Kingdom theme park in Bay Lake, Florida in the United States. Its route is 1.5 miles (2.4 km) in length and encircles the vast majority of the park, with stations in the Main Street, U.S.A., Frontierland, and Fantasyland sections. The rail line, which was built by Retlaw Enterprises (now Walt Disney Imagineering), is operated with four historic steam locomotives originally built by Baldwin Locomotive Works. Each of the four locomotives pulls a set of five passenger cars with seating capacity for 75 passengers per car, for a total of 375 passengers per train.

The Walt Disney World Railroad opened to the public for the first time on October 1, 1971, the same day that the Magic Kingdom park first opened. Since then the WDWRR has become one of the world's most popular steam-powered railroads, with 3.7 million passengers served each year.

History

Discovery in Mexico

A typical locomotive on the Ferrocarriles Unidos de Yucatán in Mexico, where the locomotives for the WDWRR were found.

The development of the Walt Disney World Railroad from the late 1960s to its opening in 1971 was overseen by Mapo, Inc. (the Retlaw Enterprises research and manufacturing branch) Vice President and General Manager Roger E. Broggie, who previously supervised the building of the Disneyland Railroad in Disneyland in Anaheim, California, the sister park of the Magic Kingdom. From his experience with the railroad at Disneyland, Broggie determined that the best option in terms of what type of steam locomotives to use would be already-existing ones, as opposed to building them entirely from scratch like the Disneyland Railroad's first two locomotives. To this end, he contacted rail historian Gerald M. Best who informed him of a possible location where these types of locomotives could be obtained.

The location was a railroad boneyard in Mérida, Yucatán, Mexico owned by the Ferrocarriles Unidos de Yucatán, a 3 ft (914 mm) narrow gauge system (the same gauge as the Disneyland Railroad). Broggie, along with fellow Disney employee and railroad-building expert Earl Vilmer, ventured down to Mérida in 1969 to investigate and determined that four locomotives (all built by Baldwin Locomotive Works) in the boneyard, along with a fifth locomotive (built by Pittsburgh Locomotive and Car Works) in a park in front of the railroad company's headquarters across the street, could potentially be salvaged.

Broggie paid a total of US$32,750 for all five locomotives (US$8,000 for each of the four locomotives in the boneyard plus an additional US$750 for the fifth locomotive in the park). The locomotives, along with an assortment of brass fittings and other spare parts given away for free, were immediately loaded on five flatcars and shipped by rail of more than 2,600 miles around the Gulf of Mexico back to the United States via the Ferrocarriles Unidos de Yucatán, the Ferrocarriles Unidos del Sureste, the Ferrocarriles Nacionales de México, the Missouri Pacific Railroad, the Louisville and Nashville Railroad, and the Atlantic Coast Line Railroad.

Restoration in Florida

Walt Disney World Railroad
Roundhouse (open to public during special tours only) Fantasyland Frontierland Ferry transfer (via short walk inside park) People mover transfer (via short walk inside park) Horse-drawn streetcar transfer (via short walk inside park) Main Street, U.S.A. Monorail transfer (via short walk outside park) Watercraft and bus transfers (via short walks outside park)

The five locomotives and spare parts acquired by Roger Broggie, in order to receive the aesthetic and mechanical restorations necessary to run on the planned Walt Disney World Railroad, were sent to the Tampa Ship Repair & Dry Dock Company in Tampa, Florida, the closest facility to the Walt Disney World site at the time with the space and equipment needed to accommodate full-size railroad equipment. Here, Transportation Superintendent Earl Vilmer, who had accompanied Broggie on his trip to Mexico, along with Project Engineer Bob Harpur and the facility's Machinist Supervisor George Britton, were tasked with the project's completion.

The four locomotives built by Baldwin Locomotive Works were given brand-new, smaller boilers built by Dixon Boiler Works. They were also given new fiberglass cabs as well as new tenders, which utilized the bogies from the original tenders. Many of the smaller original parts on the locomotives such as the domes and brass bells on top of the boilers, as well as the wheels and side rods, were successfully refurbished and included in the finished products. The locomotives' fireboxes were also reconfigured to burn diesel oil for fuel to generate steam.

Despite the successful restorations of the four Baldwin locomotives, they were not able to restore the Pittsburgh Locomotive and Car Works locomotive acquired along with them. It was the oldest of the five locomotives purchased and, deemed to have too many problems to be rebuilt, was stored out of use in California for a period before being sold to a locomotive broker.

Opening day to present day

The four newly restored locomotives for the Walt Disney World Railroad, as well as a set of five open-air passenger cars for each of them (twenty in total) made entirely from scratch, were completed in less than two years. The first of the completed locomotives arrived at the Magic Kingdom park on May 15, 1971, several months before the park's opening. Like the steam trains running on the Disneyland Railroad during Disneyland's opening day on July 17, 1955, the steam trains for the WDWRR were the first attraction in the Magic Kingdom park to be finished, and they have been operating in the park ever since it first opened on October 1, 1971. George Britton, who was instrumental in getting the WDWRR's locomotives refurbished, became the railroad's foreman, and he held that occupation from the time the railroad opened until his retirement on April 6, 2006.

During the first few months after the WDWRR opened to the public, Main Street, U.S.A. Station was the only stop for passengers along its route, making only complete round trips possible. That changed on May 1, 1972, when the first Frontierland Station opened. It was removed in November 1990 to make way for the new Splash Mountain attraction and was replaced by the current Frontierland Station, which opened in December 1991 just north of where the original station stood. During construction of the Splash Mountain attraction and the current Frontierland Station in 1991, the WDWRR operated a single train, which only traveled back and forth along the section of track between the Main Street, U.S.A. section and the Mickey's Starland section. In addition, the original water tower located next to the original Frontierland Station was removed, and a new water tower was built in the Mickey's Starland section. The WDWRR's third station, Mickey's Birthdayland Station, opened on June 18, 1988 in the Magic Kingdom park's brand-new Mickey's Birthdayland section east of the Fantasyland section, and the railroad was briefly renamed Mickey’s Birthdayland Express to promote it. On February 11, 2011, after getting its name changed to Mickey's Starland in 1990, Mickey's Toyland in 1995, and Mickey's Toontown Fair in 1996, the section and its WDWRR station closed to make way for the new Storybook Circus area, which would be part of a new expansion of the Fantasyland section. The current Fantasyland Station, built on the site of the former Mickey's Toontown Fair Station, opened on March 12, 2012. While the new Fantasyland Station was being constructed, the station site was temporarily named the Watering Outpost. During the WDWRR's 2017 refurbishment, the text on the Main Street, U.S.A. Station sign indicating a population of 600,000,000 and an elevation of 108 feet (33 m) was replaced with the new text Est. 1971.

Ride experience

The WDWRR's water tower at Fantasyland Station.

Beginning at Main Street, U.S.A. Station adjacent to the Magic Kingdom park's entrance, the trains of the Walt Disney World Railroad travel along its single track in a clockwise direction on its circular route. Each train is operated by an engineer and fireman in the locomotive, as well as a conductor in the back of the train who supervises the passengers. After the train departs Main Street, U.S.A. Station, it passes through a backstage crossing adjacent to the Adventureland section where a Hidden Mickey made up of three wheels lying on the ground can be seen on the left side of the track along with some spare parts scattering from the train. The train then travels across a small bridge before going through a tunnel nicknamed Pirates Tunnel, which separates two buildings of the Pirates of the Caribbean attraction. After going through the parade crossing in the Frontierland section and the tunnel through the Splash Mountain log flume attraction, the train's next stop is at Frontierland Station. Continuing down the line, the train passes the Big Thunder Mountain Railroad roller coaster attraction and trundles over a swing bridge, which was originally located in Wabasso, Florida and previously owned by the Florida East Coast Railway. After crossing the bridge, passengers will be able to see numerous static and animatronic displays of Native Americans and wild animals on their way to the train's next stop at Fantasyland Station. In the final phase of the train's journey around the park, it passes the walkway between the Fantasyland and Tomorrowland sections, the Space Mountain roller coaster attraction, the Tomorrowland Light & Power Co. building, and travels over a small bridge before arriving back at Main Street, U.S.A. Station, completing what the park refers to as The Grand Circle Tour.

• Stations of the Walt Disney World Railroad
• 
  Main Street, U.S.A. Station
• 
  Frontierland Station
• 
  Fantasyland Station

Starting in 1999, a separately-priced tour of the WDWRR named Disney's The Magic Behind Our Steam Trains Tour is available once daily, and includes access to the railroad's otherwise-restricted roundhouse where the trains are stored and maintained.

Rolling stock

Each Walt Disney World Railroad locomotive when working on the line consumes 25 US gallons (95 L) of fuel and 200 US gallons (760 L) of water per hour. Their tenders hold 664 US gallons (2,510 L) of fuel and 1,837 US gallons (6,950 L) of water. In the past, all four steam locomotives have received overhauls at the Tweetsie Railroad in Blowing Rock, North Carolina.

The table below lists the details of the WDWRR's locomotives and their passenger cars.

Number	Name	Namesake	Image	Wheel arrangement	Date built	Baldwin Locomotive Works serial number	Passenger cars	Date entered service	Notes
1	Walter E. Disney	Walt Disney		4-6-0 (Ten-wheeler)	May 1925	58444	Five red passenger cars	October 1, 1971	This is the tallest locomotive in the WDWRR fleet at 11 feet 11 inches (3.63 m), giving it 1 inch (0.025 m) of clearance between the top of its smokestack and the top of the roundhouse doors.
2	Lilly Belle	Lillian Disney		2-6-0 (Mogul)	September 1928	60598	Five green passenger cars	October 1, 1971	First WDWRR locomotive to be completed prior to the Magic Kingdom park's opening.
3	Roger E. Broggie	Roger E. Broggie		4-6-0 (Ten-wheeler)	May 1925	58445	Five yellow passenger cars	October 1, 1971	Originally planned to be named after Roy O. Disney, but given that he did not want his name attached to the locomotive nearly identical to the No. 1 named after Walt Disney, the No. 4 was named after him instead. In 2003, Michael Broggie and Roger Broggie, Jr. rededicated this locomotive in honor of their father.
4	Roy O. Disney	Roy O. Disney		4-4-0 (American)	February 1916	42915	Five blue passenger cars	December 1, 1971	This is the WDWRR's oldest locomotive and predates the Magic Kingdom's oldest purpose-built amusement attraction: the Prince Charming Regal Carrousel, originally built in 1917. This locomotive's entry into service on the WDWRR was delayed until a few months after the park opened due to the need for repairs to a crack in its frame. In 2002, Roy E. Disney rededicated this locomotive in his father's honor.

See also

• Hogwarts Express (Universal Orlando Resort)
• Rail transport in Walt Disney Parks and Resorts
• TECO Line Streetcar System

Bibliography

• Amendola, Dana (2015), All Aboard: The Wonderful World of Disney Trains (1st ed.), Disney Editions, ISBN 978-1-4231-1714-8 {{citation}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |publisher= (help)
• Bradshaw, Kate; et al. (2013), Fodor's Walt Disney World 2013 (1st ed.), Fodor's, ISBN 978-0-307-92944-0 {{citation}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |publisher= (help)
• Broggie, Michael (2014), Walt Disney's Railroad Story: The Small-Scale Fascination That Led to a Full-Scale Kingdom (4th ed.), The Donning Company Publishers, ISBN 978-1-57864-914-3 {{citation}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |publisher= (help)

Further reading

• Leaphart, David (2016), Walt Disney World Railroads Part 3: Yucatan Jewels (1st ed.), Steel Wheel on Steel Rail Studio, ISBN 978-1533037077 {{citation}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |publisher= (help)

External links

• Official website
• Geographic data related to Walt Disney World Railroad at OpenStreetMap