Definitely a fun thread!

However, I suspect you have a faulty or B&W image--the DRR never painted No. 2. in solid black--especially not for a postcard.

Glad you like the thread.

The funny thing, the postcard is in color, and supposedly is connected with the railroad "going green" by using second-hand vegetable oil in the engines! At least, that's what's on the card!

Where is the image from? And equally important, where did I put the thing?

I have a weird brain. Someone says something, or I see or think of something, and something else comes to mind. In this case, it's the park railroad at Kennywood Amusement Park near Pittsburgh, Pa. This road has streamlined steam outline gasoline locomotives--they look like a Marx streamlined 0-4-0--but with a rather unusual heritage; they date back to the 1939 World's Fair. They have been running at Kennywood since 1945:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kennywood#See_also

http://www.flickr.com/photos/digitalala ... rs_photos/

http://www.karenandjay.com/trips/kenny804/train.jpg

http://www.flickr.com/photos/mstyborski/3007213767/

With the original cars, since heavily rebuilt.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?VI ... 0906817360

http://www.mikeshistoricamusementparks. ... od/101.jpg

In action, this railroad really looks like a Marx toy as the short, four-wheeled locomotives abruptly change directions on the sharply curved track; I wonder if the track was laid out with any easements at all!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ooKxy2yi3eY

Take note of the 1930-vintage auto race ride that also shows up in this clip:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LGp7guqK ... re=related

Kennywood is a much-beloved park in the Pittsburgh area, and is notable for dating back to trolley days. Its rides include the aforementioned 1930-vintage auto race ride, a 1926 carousel, and classic roller coasters.

http://www.mikeshistoricamusementparks. ... dhome.html

http://www.puderluder.com/Rollercoaster ... d_2005.htm

You sound like you know the story of Walt Disney and his railroads:

http://www.amazon.com/Walt-Disneys-Rail ... 1563420090

What most people don't realize is that Disneyland was built around the Disneyland Railroad, and not the other way around as is usually the case. Walt Disney enjoyed giving rides on his live steam backyard Carolwood Pacific Railroad; but complaints from neighbors and an accidental derailment that injured a child motivated him to build something bigger. That "something bigger" was the Disneyland Railroad, in many ways just a scaled up version of the Carolwood Pacific Railroad.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disneyland_Railroad

Walt Disney and much of his Imagneering team -- Ward Kimball, Ollie Johnston, Bob Harpur, Bill Cottrell, Roger Broggie, Bill Evans, and many others -- were train nuts just like us. Disneyland and Disney World shows what a train nut with the right vision and team can achieve. They took "playing with trains" to a whole new and profiable level.

Unfortunately, the team running Disney now are not railfans. They don't entirely share Walt Disney's vision; one reason why the movies that have come out in the past few decades are by "Disney", and not "Walt Disney." (Or, as stated in Miracle on 34th Street; "he doesn't believe in Santa Clause.) So Walt Disney's dream would never make it past the bean counters that run the company now.

Here I am on the "Behind the Magic Tour of the Disney World Railroad." Notice that when they rebuilt the Mexican engines, they built them with lower profile boilers. All of Main Street USA, including the station, is built 2/3 actual size; so the engines were reduced in profile so they would fit the scale. Just one of those neat touches Disney is/was famous for.

"Unfortunately, the team running Disney now are not railfans. They don't entirely share Walt Disney's vision; one reason why the movies that have come out in the past few decades are by "Disney", and not "Walt Disney." (Or, as stated in Miracle on 34th Street; "he doesn't believe in Santa Clause.) So Walt Disney's dream would never make it past the bean counters that run the company now."--Surviving World Steam

So true, and one must add lawyers to the bean counters.

I had some personal experience here, too, and with Disney to boot.

Some years back, Disney was looking at opening a new theme park near Haymarket, Va. As it turned out, a lot of rich people live in the area, and one of the things they didn't like about the idea was all the traffic they would be looking at coming past their horse farms.

If I am remembering things correctly, Haymarket is on the former Southern line from Manassas to Front Royal (one of Southern's steam routes in the steam program days). I put together a proposal for Disney to use real steam trains to bring people in from further afield; from Purcellville, Washington, DC, and Hagerstown, Md. This was before the Shenandoah Valley line and the Front Royal line became as busy as they are now, and before the Dismal Swamp incident, and before a bunch of other things. Essentially it was "park and ride" behind steam. Hagerstown's roundhouse was still standing then, too, and like Steamtown today, would have been an attraction in its own right.

What was the response? A letter from some secretary under some lawyer who said they didn't even read the proposal because it was an "idea" from outside, and such ideas from outside could lead to a lawsuit if adopted. (Apparently there are problems of this sort involved in scripts and the like.)

The opposition and other internal problems eventually killed the park in Virginia.

A lot of people talk about how America is not the land of opportunity it once was. I think it is true, but not for the reasons so often stated.

That's all I'll say about this, partially because I have a wife who has a "honey, do" list for me and I'm out of time, and partially because what I would say might contradict some people's political beliefs--and there is too much upset, too much stomach acid in the world from that for today. . .

Classic, J3a.

I have the post card you're referening. It is indeed in color, and touts the (then) new use of biodiesel as a fuel in the engines. While the engine does look black, that's just a trick of lighting on the engine--which was taken on an overcast day. I'd be happy to scan it in if anyone's interested.

I've got a similar postcard showing Disney engine No. 4, which is the all-red engine. The lighting on the cab makes it look as though the cab is painted black! Again, just light playing tricks.

That's great picture, James.

I'm not sure that the engines were built with "lower profile" boilers; the original boilers on these narrow gauge engines we're the largest. However, I agree that Disney did a great job in the detailing and design that allows them to blend in with their surroundings. Remember, with the first two Disney engines built in 1955, there was an attempt to make the narrow gauge engines appear to be standard gauge. The same technique was likely taken at Walt Disney World.

Mentioned earlier, the WDW engines all feature crosshead pumps. These don't show in original photos of the engines from the late 1960s, but were probably used in Mexico, and shipped separately. The thinking goes that crosshead pumps were probably easier to repair "south of the border" than injectors. The pumps are operational, and are actually the primary means of putting water in the boilers (although all engines are also fitted with two injetors). I wonder if these aren't the only operational steam engines (excepting the Jupiter and UP 119?) using crosshead pumps?

Finally, also of interest: the WDW engines actually have home-built feedwater heaters!

Quite the contrary, actually. Pixar's John Lasseter, Disney's Chief Creative Officer and a driving force in the company, is now proud owner of Ollie Johnston's 3' Porter "Marie E."—along with Ward Kimball's station and water tank. If you've seen the scaled-down Pacific Electric red cars going in at Disneyland or caught the train in Toy Story 3, he's the primary party to thank. Here's a video of our after-hours crew playtime during Lasseter's 2007 visit to the Pacific Coast Railroad with the Marie pulling one of Walt's original Santa Fe & Disneyland coaches. I don't think you'll find anyone in the company with more respect for (and a greater embodiment of) the Disney legacy and the spirit of his predecessors than this man, who first joined it in Anaheim as a Jungle Cruise skipper. Tony Baxter, Senior VP of Creative Development for Walt Disney Imagineering, is also an avid railfan and live steamer.

Well, Steve, that explains the "black" No. 2!

My weird brain cells are being tickled again, recalling a park train that might be considered more "real" than most, in that it didn't pretend to be something else. . .

This was an electric railroad of 2-foot gauge at Hershey Park, in Hershey, Pa. I rode the thing a number of times on school trips back in the early 1970s, but it was apparently long gone by the time I was back in Hershey to see 2102 on one its 40th anniversary trips in the 1980s. I recall the equipment as being old, and consisting of four flatcars with wooden walkover seats like you would see on an open trolley, with a small electric locomotive coupled in the center. The locomotive had an open cab, and the hoods were made of wood. Power collection was from a covered center third rail. Red was dominant color, the end flats had headlights and pilots, and the whole thing rode on arch bar trucks. The locomotive didn't have a horn or whistle, but used a siren as a warning going over one grade crossing. The line ran around one edge of the park, and was just a stretch of track running from a barn at a high elevation, to a station at a low elevation--a true point-to-point railroad, with no switches at all. It did have two intermediate stations, and like the end stations, were "high-platform" types for level boarding, like a rapid transit line, although the train didn't stop at either of these stations when I rode it.

At that time the park was "open;" you could walk in anywhere, and you paid for rides individually. Later, at the time I was there to see the 2102, the park had been enclosed, with an admission fee. Part of this electric railroad ran outside the current fence, and I suspect this is part of what lead to its removal.

Does anybody else remember this, and does anybody have photos?

Here's a thread on another forum talking about the restoration of the Hershey Trolley. The last post in the thread is from 2009: http://www.railroadforums.com/forum/showthread.php?t=16884

And here's a page with some news updates and photos. It looks like the trolley and a car have been restored, at least cosmetically. http://hersheyhistory.org/exhibits-collections/trolley/miniature-railway

Weekend Railroader--

YOU FOUND IT!!

I only rode the thing on two trips when I was younger--even younger than I thought I was at the time! How did those years pass so fast?

I have to say I didn't realize the thing was as old as it is, and of course my memory wasn't quite right on the truck design. I'm glad to see it's still around; too bad it doesn't look like it is to be restored to operation.

http://hersheyhistory.org/images/exhibi ... _early.gif

The steep slope that seems to be in this photo would place the location somewhere between the barn and the first intermediate station. I don't remember the standard gauge spur, which was likely gone long before I was ever there; I wonder where it went?

This photo is at one of the two intermediate stations; this looks to be the first one coming down from the barn. It is at the foot of the grade leading to this barn. The rest of the line, curving back out of the photo, went around a pond if my ancient memories are correct, and was nearly level. It went under a roller coaster shortly before arriving at the lower station.

http://hersheyhistory.org/images/exhibi ... itrain.gif

This second photo is a good deal newer than the first in the link, but I'm afraid the clothes aren't quite distinctive enough for me to set a time period. It's also interesting to see a German oom-pa band riding the first car! I wonder what the occasion for this was?

Thanks for the find!

Not of the park line, but cool to see--some surviving equipment from the Hershey trolley system:

http://hersheyhistory.org/exhibits-coll ... ershey-no3

http://hersheyhistory.org/exhibits-coll ... ershey-no7

Did some of the Hershey trolleys end up in Cuba?

Looks like it was founded by Hershey; but different system, different equipment:

http://ymtram.mashke.org/cuba/hershey/descr_en.html

Surviving World, I don't believe anything from the Hershey line in Pennsylvania wound up in Cuba, at least not that I know of. As you stated, the two systems were built independently, even with common ownership. What I've seen of the Cuban operation looks or looked more like a classic "heavy" interurban, akin to a smaller version of a Pacific Electric or a Sacramento Northern; the Hershey line in Pennsylvania was more of a light-duty interurban, along the lines of the Hagerstown & Frederick in Maryland. This line was abandoned in the later 1940s, and it's not likely some of the equipment would have been reused on an already complete system in Cuba.

Back to the subject of amusement park trains, particularly trains pulled by The One True Power (steam)--when looking up the material for the Kennywood train, I came across some footage of some larger steam types (a 4-6-4 and a 4-8-4) on 14" gauge. These locomotives and the train they pulled came from a park called Kiddieland in the Chicago area. According to a website dedicated to these locomotives and trains, they were custom built for the park in the late 1930s and late 1940s. Although the owner was apparently a fan of the Chicago & North Western, his miniatures resembled nothing of that line; rather, they are generic streamlined steamers, with grey paint and a lettering style that suggest a New York Central influence.

http://kiddielandtrain.com/

http://www.hesston.org/events/484_464_k ... imited.jpg

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cYHg55vVI04

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tBrlxudP ... re=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y28d0BE_ ... re=related

Have fun!

What about operations like Knott's Berry Farm, in CA, which operates an amazing collection of Colorado narrow gauge equipment, including 2 C-19s, Galloping Goose No. 3, several Jackson & Sharp coaches and the RGS business car "Edna." The equipment is even painted authentically (although with a little gloss to the engines)?



Real? Or "kiddie ride?"

I wish our White Pass equipment got the same attention.