.

The era of corporate sponsorship may seem like a relatively recent trend, with ballparks named after local insurance companies, banks, or other high capital ventures, but it's actually been around a long while.

Back in the mid 20th Century, railroads were both profitable and part of daily life. The railroad at Disneyland was named the Sante Fe & Disneyland until 1974, due to the Santa Fe sponsorship.

Likewise, the Omaha Zoo Railroad was sponsored by the UP, no doubt due to the company's large presence in the city.

Quoting WikiPedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omaha_Zoo_Railroad

The Omaha Zoo Railroad was one of the first major attractions added after the zoo's 1963 re-incorporation as the Henry Doorly Zoo. As part of its centennial celebration, the Omaha-based Union Pacific Railroad decided to sponsor the construction of a train ride at the zoo.

See the article for more details.

Built in the 1890's....Hmmmmmm. I assume that the zoo railroad is non-FRA, so it is not as big a deal, but does the locomotive have a lap-seam boiler?

The AGS has an interesting relationship with the OZR. I'm told we borrowed their 30" tamper during the rebuild of the track and I had a wonderful chat in 2010 with a few of their crew who were up to visit. It's interesting to see how different 30" gauge stuff is. I'm fairly sure that when we were running #12 we had one of if not the largest 30" steamer in a geographic area and hearing of other crews sharing the gauge was very interesting. They also have an American, Crown?, as #119. Need to take up the offer to go run with them sometime.

The 4-4-0 #119 is indeed a Crown, though it has apparently had "subsequent modifications" to improve it's pulling performance as well as a "major rebuild" per Wikipedia. Exactly what that entailed isn't specified.

One thing I notice is that the engine seems a bit out of scale in relation to the coaches, being rather large. You can see it well in the zoo's photo:
http://www.omahazoo.com/visit/rides/train/

Compare that the 30 inch gauge 4-4-0 at the Portland Zoo:
http://www.bobharbison.com/oregonzoo/Zo ... large.html

To my eyes, the Portland Zoo's steamer is akin to Disney's original locomotives at Disneyland, which were 3-foot gauge miniatures of standard gauge locomotives. Crown's 30-incher at Omaha looks like a modification of one of the builder's 36" gauge engines, which were full-sized 25-ton narrow gauge 4-4-0s, designed by a man who had worked for Porter in Pittsburgh.

Crown's "big engines" thus may be a glimpse of what a Porter 4-4-0 might look like, if built for operation on sharper than normal curves.