Yes, in one way or another I have always loved trains.
—Walt Disney
Rail transport can be found in every theme park resort property owned or licensed by Disney Parks, Experiences and Products, one of the four business segments of the Walt Disney Company. The origins of Disney theme park rail transport can be traced back to Walt Disney himself and his personal fondness for railroads, who insisted that they be included in the first Disney park, the original Disneyland (a key component of the Disneyland Resort) in California in the United States, which opened on July 17, 1955. The Disney tradition of including transport by rail in, and adjacent to, its parks has since been extended to other Disney properties with the opening of Walt Disney World in Florida in the United States, Tokyo Disney Resort in Japan, Disneyland Paris in France, Hong Kong Disneyland Resort in China, and Shanghai Disney Resort in China. The Disney theme park chain is the largest on the planet by annual attendance with over 155 million visitors in 2019, and the rail systems located inside its properties play key roles as modes of transportation and as attractions for its visitors.
Each Disney theme park resort has a rail transport system serving its general resort area, whether it is a monorail system located inside the Disney resort properties in the United States and Japan, or a conventional rail system connecting external rail networks to the Disney resorts in France and China. The Disneyland Monorail System in California was the first monorail system in the United States; the Walt Disney World Monorail System in Florida, with an estimated 150,000 passengers per day, is one of the busiest monorail systems in the world. Both Disney park resort properties in the United States, as well as those in Japan and France, contain theme parks that feature genuine steam-powered railroads. The Disney park chain has one of the world's largest private collections of operational steam locomotives, with seventeen in total spread across the globe. Additional rail systems within the theme parks in both United States resorts and the Hong Kong resort resemble steam-powered railroads, but their locomotives are powered by internal combustion engines. Other rail transport modes found in Disney parks include horse-drawn streetcar rail lines within both resorts in the United States and the resort in France, replica vintage electric rail lines in California and Japan, and a people mover in Florida.
Disneyland Resort
| Name | Location | Image | Motive power type | Track gauge | Opened | Closed | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Disneyland Monorail | General resort area |  | Electric (busbar) | Monorail | June 14, 1959 | – | First operational monorail system in the United States. Historic Mechanical Engineering Landmark status. Valid admission to Disneyland is required to ride this monorail. |
| Disneyland Railroad | Disneyland |  | Steam | 3 ft (914 mm) | July 17, 1955 | – | Design inspired by Walt Disney's Carolwood Pacific Railroad and Ward Kimball's Grizzly Flats Railroad. |
| Main Street Vehicles | Disneyland |  | Working animal | 3 ft (914 mm) | July 17, 1955 | – | Besides the tramway with horse-drawn streetcars, non-rail, old-fashioned motor vehicles are also part of this attraction. |
| Casey Jr. Circus Train | Disneyland |  | Internal combustion (gasoline) | 2 ft (610 mm) | July 17, 1955 | – | Based on the anthropomorphic locomotive character Casey Junior from the Disney 1941 animated feature film Dumbo |
| Mine Train Through Nature's Wonderland (formerly Rainbow Caverns Mine Train) | Disneyland | .jpg) | Electric (battery) | 2 ft 6 in (762 mm) | July 2, 1956 | January 2, 1977 | Replaced by the Big Thunder Mountain Railroad mine train roller coaster attraction |
| Viewliner Train of Tomorrow | Disneyland | – | Internal combustion (gasoline) | 2 ft 6 in (762 mm) | June 10, 1957 | September 30, 1958 | Replaced by the Disneyland Monorail System |
| PeopleMover | Disneyland |  | Electric (track-embedded spinning tires) | People mover | July 2, 1967 | August 21, 1995 | The former line's elevated track infrastructure is still present at the park. |
| Jolly Trolley | Disneyland | .jpg) | Internal combustion (diesel) | 3 ft (914 mm) | January 24, 1993 | December 2003 | The former line and ride vehicles are still present at the park as static displays. |
| Red Car Trolley | Disney California Adventure |  | Electric (battery) | 1,000 mm (3 ft 3+3⁄8 in) metre gauge | June 15, 2012 | – | Non-operating overhead wires are in place to recreate the appearance of a heritage streetcar line. |
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Walt Disney World
| Name | Location | Image | Motive power type | Track gauge | Opened | Closed | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Walt Disney World Monorail System | Magic Kingdom and Epcot resort areas |  | Electric (busbar) | Monorail | October 1, 1971 | – | One of the world's busiest monorail systems with an estimated 150,000 passengers each day. No purchase of any kind is required to ride this monorail. |
| Walt Disney World Railroad | Magic Kingdom |  | Steam | 3 ft (914 mm) | October 1, 1971 | – | All four locomotives, originally built by Baldwin Locomotive Works, were purchased from the Ferrocarriles Unidos de Yucatán. |
| Main Street Vehicles | Magic Kingdom |  | Working animal | 3 ft (914 mm) | October 1, 1971 | – | Besides the tramway with horse-drawn streetcars, non-rail, old-fashioned motor vehicles are also part of this attraction. |
| PeopleMover (Magic Kingdom) | Magic Kingdom | .jpg) | Electric (track-embedded linear induction motors) | People mover | July 1, 1975 | – | An early concept model for Epcot can be seen during the ride. |
| Fort Wilderness Railroad | Disney's Fort Wilderness Resort & Campground | – | Steam | 2 ft 6 in (762 mm) | January 1, 1974 | February 1980 | Numerous operational problems, poor design, and high costs led to the closure of this railroad. |
| Wildlife Express Train | Disney's Animal Kingdom |  | Internal combustion (diesel) | 3 ft (914 mm) | April 22, 1998 | – | Despite the dated and weathered appearance of the trains, they are actually brand-new models built by Severn Lamb. |
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Tokyo Disney Resort
| Name | Location | Image | Motive power type | Track gauge | Opened | Closed | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Disney Resort Line | General resort area |  | Electric (busbar) | Monorail | July 27, 2001 | – | Fares are required to ride this monorail. A transfer to Maihama Station, served by the JR East rail network's Keiyō Line and Musashino Line, exists via a short walk from the monorail's Resort Gateway Station. |
| Western River Railroad | Tokyo Disneyland |  | Steam | 2 ft 6 in (762 mm) | April 15, 1983 | – | Used purely as an attraction and not for transportation purposes, as it only has one station |
| Jolly Trolley | Tokyo Disneyland | – | Electric (battery) | 3 ft (914 mm) | April 15, 1996 | April 14, 2009 | The former line and ride vehicles are still present at the park as static displays. |
| DisneySea Electric Railway | Tokyo DisneySea | .jpg) | Electric (third rail) | 2 ft 6 in (762 mm) | September 4, 2001 | – | Designed to recreate the appearance of a classic elevated railway line |
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Disneyland Paris
| Name | Location | Image | Motive power type | Track gauge | Opened | Closed | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Marne-la-Vallée–Chessy station | General resort area |  | Electric (overhead wire) | 4 ft 8+1⁄2 in (1,435 mm) standard gauge | April 1, 1992 (RER); May 29, 1994 (TGV) | – | Served by commuter trains on the Réseau Express Régional rail network's RER A line, as well as TGV, Eurostar, Thalys, and Ouigo high-speed trains |
| Disneyland Railroad (Paris) | Disneyland Park (Paris) |  | Steam | 3 ft (914 mm) | April 12, 1992 | – | Originally named Euro Disneyland Railroad, and its old initials, EDRR, are still visible in parts of the park |
| Horse-Drawn Streetcars | Disneyland Park (Paris) | .JPG) | Working animal | 3 ft (914 mm) | April 12, 1992 | – | Unlike its counterpart attractions in other Disney parks, this tramway is a separate attraction from the non-rail, old-fashioned motor vehicles making up the Main Street Vehicles attraction. |
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Hong Kong Disneyland Resort
| Name | Location | Image | Motive power type | Track gauge | Opened | Closed | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Disneyland Resort line | General resort area | .JPG) | Electric (overhead wire) | 1,432 mm (4 ft 8+3⁄8 in) | August 1, 2005 | – | Run by the MTR rapid transit rail network along with the line's two stations: Sunny Bay station and Disneyland Resort station. The former station is shared with MTR's Tung Chung line. |
| Hong Kong Disneyland Railroad | Hong Kong Disneyland |  | Internal combustion (diesel) | 3 ft (914 mm) | September 12, 2005 | – | Unlike its counterpart attractions in other Disney parks where the trains are powered by steam, this railroad's locomotives are steam outline models, which are diesel locomotives with the outward appearance of steam locomotives. |
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Shanghai Disney Resort
| Name | Location | Image | Motive power type | Track gauge | Opened | Closed | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Disney Resort station | General resort area |  | Electric (overhead wire) | 4 ft 8+1⁄2 in (1,435 mm) standard gauge | April 26, 2016 | – | Served by Line 11 of the Shanghai Metro rapid transit rail network |
See also
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References
Bibliography
- Amendola, Dana (2015). All Aboard: The Wonderful World of Disney Trains (1st ed.). Disney Editions. ISBN 978-1-4231-1714-8.
- 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.
- DeGaetano, Steve (2015). The Disneyland Railroad: A Complete History in Words and Pictures (2nd ed.). Theme Park Press. ISBN 978-1-941500-56-9.
- Leaphart, David (2014). Walt Disney World Railroads Part 1: Fort Wilderness Railroad (1st ed.). Steel Wheel on Steel Rail Studio. ISBN 978-1-5008-0522-7.
External links
Wikimedia Commons has media related to Rail transport in Walt Disney Parks and Resorts.
- Official website (Disney Parks)
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