Obituaries are showing up in the major newspapers for Ollie Johnston, apparently the last of the original "nine old men" animation team of Walt Disney's. Co-member Ward Kimball was well known in railroad circles for his backyard 1:1 "model railroad" complete with station, but as it turns out Ollie was also a locomotive-owning rail and steam enthusiast as well, owning a 1901 Porter narrow-gauge 0-4-0T rebuilt to an 0-4-0 on his Julian, Ca. estate:

http://edition.cnn.com/2008/SHOWBIZ/Mov ... pstoryview

The Pacific Southwest RR Museum put its own touching obit up at its website:

http://www.sdrm.org/ollie/

Johnston also wrote the foreword to Michael Broggie's "Walt Disney's Railroad Story" and rated a sub-chapter of his own.

Johnson's private backyard railroad featured the "Marie E" which has been acquired by Pixar's John Lassetter. It visited the private Pacific Coast Railroad last year.
o anderson
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