Tomorrow on December 8, Disney Legend Bob Gurr will be hosting a program at The Walt Disney Family Museum called “Building Disneyland,” highlighting how Walt got things done quickly. So, we here at STORYBOARD would like to share this story about a seldom-discussed Gurr creation that he whipped up in 1957 quickly, and creatively, at Walt’s request.
In 1956, the Mickey Mouse Club Circus folded up its tents for the last time after a very limited run. Its main tent was relocated to the picnic area of Holidayland, leaving the area it occupied bare. It needed to be filled, and fast. Amongst other things, Walt decided a small streamlined train connecting Fantasyland to Tomorrowland would do just fine. This was not going to be an ordinary train, however. Bob Gurr received inspiration from General Motors’ experimental streamlined “Aerotrain” that traveled between Los Angeles and Las Vegas for a short time that year. “I thought it was the slickest looking thing on rails,” Gurr stated. “I made a quick rendering of a streamline train based on the GM Aerotrain. If you are gonna steal, steal from the best!”
The production of this new streamlined train was unorthodox from the beginning. “I went to the local wrecking yard and picked out a couple of smashed 1954 Oldsmobiles to design into the locomotive,” Gurr recalled. “Since I needed to make the locomotive narrower than a car, the Olds was perfect.” Gurr and his team did not have design sketches for the entire project. They designed as they went, often producing quick little sketches on the actual shop floor.
While assembling the streamliner at the Walt Disney Studio Machine Shop, the crew encountered a few firsts. In addition to the first time fashioning a train after an Oldsmobile, they also forewent steam for a different source of fuel. “I’d never engineered a gasoline-engine locomotive before, and the shop folks had never built one either,” Gurr said. “Walt wanted it and we were doing it. That’s how we all learned a new trade.”
Thrown together using the front end of an Olds, the power train of a Chevrolet 327, and the perspicacity of Bob Gurr, the Viewliner debuted in late June, 1957. There had been no time to train ride operators, so Gurr, joined by Walt, manned the controls on the locomotive’s maiden voyage. The Disneyland streamliner ran on a figure-8 track, and cost only one “B” ticket. Two trains were constructed, one red (Tomorrowland) one blue (Fantasyland). The Tomorrowland cars were named after planets, and the Fantasyland cars were named after Disney characters. At one time there was a fun suggestion to create a car called Pluto that could act as a spare for either train. The cars were permanently coupled together, however, so it remained a fun suggestion.
The attraction only lasted 15 months, but lives on as a wonderful example of—albeit quirky—ingenuity and efficient manufacturing. Bob Gurr produced the Viewliner’s first construction drawing on February 1, 1957. Less than five months later, he was operating it in Walt Disney’s original Magic Kingdom.
Walt and his staff knew how to get things done, and get them done quickly.
Keith Gluck is a WDFM volunteer, writer/editor for thedisneyproject.com, a Disney fan site. His Disney life started early, visiting Disneyland before turning one, and writing his very first book report on a Walt Disney biography for kids.