

Everything about its design and construction was meticulous, from the redwood trestles and rose-garden tunnel to the centralized traffic control board installed in the red barn that served as the Carolwood Pacific’s machine shop and headquarters. “As the train rolled into one station after another I stood beside the conductor on the car steps to enjoy the envious stares of youngsters waiting on the platform.”ĭisney’s backyard Carolwood Pacific, with its views of surrounding canyons, may have been miniature, but it was no less real than any life-sized counterpart.

“I felt very important wearing a neat blue serge uniform with brass buttons, a peaked cap and a shiny badge in my lapel,” Disney wrote in the October 1965 issue of Railroad Magazine. In addition to newspapers, he sold fruit, candy and other snacks and amenities to passengers. When Walt was a little older he worked a summer job as a news butcher on that Santa Fe line. His father Elias once worked as a railroad machinist and carpenter and his uncle Mike Martin was an engineer on the Santa Fe line that rain past Marceline. Walt came by his love of trains in his youth. The Heritage Auction event “The Art of the Disney Theme Park and Disney Storybook” will take place April 8-10. The original plans and blueprints are now part of a lot that captures this unique piece of Disney and Los Angeles history. “I just needed something to get myself away from things,” Walt once said of his decision to create this backyard railyard. Walt named the locomotive the Lilly Belle in honor of his wife Lillian.The train itself was a perfect 1/8-scale, 260-pound, coal-fueled, 7¼-inch gauge train.It featured 2,615 feet of track and a long curving tunnel so you couldn’t see the exit when you entered it.That germ of an idea eventually grew into Disneyland.

He called his backyard hobby the Carolwood Pacific Railroad and in many ways it fueled Walt’s desire to build a special place where others could enjoy trains and other rides as a family.

Walt Disney’s Holmby Hills home, where he lived in the 1950s, was situated on five acres which was the perfect space to indulge in his growing hobby of rideable miniature railroads. The historic lot is going up for auction next month on Heritage Auctions. The division was altered on January 31, 2001, at the retirement of Executive Vice President, Ron Logan, who was the head of the division.ĭisney Creative Entertainment was founded in 2000 with the arrival of Executive Vice President Anne Hamburger.Some lucky Disneyana collector, or hopefully a museum or fan club like The Carolwood Society, will soon be the sole owner of the original plans for Walt Disney’s Backyard Railroad. History Disney Entertainment įormerly founded as Walt Disney Entertainment as a wing of the Walt Disney Company, it produced all shows and parades for Disney worldwide, including everything from the Disney-created Super Bowl Half-time shows to theme parks.
