"I suppose I’ve always been in love with trains,” Walt wrote, and in October we will celebrate his lifelong locomotive love at The Walt Disney Family Museum, and here on Storyboard.
Disneyland’s Viewliner was a narrow gauge miniature train that once rode parallel rails alongside sections of the Santa Fe & Disneyland Railroad main line.
“The area northeast of Fantasyland was just a big dusty bare spot after the 1956 Circus was removed from Disneyland,” Bob Gurr recalls. “Walt needed to fill this space with something quick and simple. Adding Autopia Jr. and a small river connected to Fantasyland, and a small railroad was the plan. Walt thought a small Streamline Train starting from Tomorrowland would work fine.”
Gurr recalls that the Viewliner was conceived so quickly that the design and fabrication were also a…learning experience. “We made lots of small sketches on the fly on the shop floor for the guys building everything. I’d never engineered a gasoline-engined locomotive before, and the shop folks had never built one before. Walt wanted it and we were doing it. That’s how we all learned a new trade.”
The attraction opened on June 26, 1957 and was ballyhooed as “the fastest miniature train in the world.” Two separate trains were designed, based on General Motors’ futuristic Aerotrain (“…if you are gonna steal, steal from the best!” Bob Gurr admits.), and traveled along a figure-eight track through Tomorrowland and Fantasyland. The cars of the Tomorrowland train were named for the planets, the cars of the Fantasyland train were named after Disney characters.
Although really an odd “show business” hybrid of automobile and passenger train, the Viewliner represented the contrast of a modern, streamlined train and the “antique” steam-powered vehicles of the SF&DRR. Though no doubt impractical for anything beyond their Disneyland service, the Viewliners felt like the future. Power for each train consisted of an integral head-end unit driven by an Oldsmobile “Rocket” V8 gasoline engine. The windscreen, doors and instrument console for each of the two 5,000-pound locomotives were “re-engineered” by Gurr from stock Oldsmobile components.
The attraction closed just over a year later, on September 15, 1958 when construction began on the Matterhorn and Submarine Voyage, making it one of the shortest-lived rides in the park’s history.
The Great Locomotive Chase screens daily through October at 1:00pm and 4:00pm (except Tuesdays, and October 15). Tickets are available at the Reception and Member Service Desk at the Museum, or online by clicking here.