Monday, November 26, 2007

Not Disneyland, September 1960

I was going to try to fool some of you so that you'd think that this was Disneyland. But then I realized that it wouldn't work! You are all way too savvy and good looking to be tricked by the likes of me.

Yes, that's Freedomland's choo-choo presumably taking on a new load of passengers at the "San Francisco" station. It still weirds me out to see that the locomotive bears the name Ernest S. Marsh, as well as the Santa Fe logo...that is just too much like Disneyland. Wasn't there any other old-time Santa Fe notable they could have named their engine after? Simon P. Terwilliger? Horace Haversham? Jonas Underwood? (I admit, I just made them up). Still, it's a beautiful old train. Wonder what happened to it when the park closed four years later? It's interesting to consider that, without amusement parks, many of the old steam trains that survive today would be rusting away on the scrap heap.


If this was Disneyland in September, the guests would be wearing warm-weather duds. These folks are sensibly wearing jackets, sweaters and windbreakers. Welcome to The Bronx!

4 comments:

Matterhorn1959 said...

The map up on the bridge support is really nice. I believe these engines went to other parks.

The Viewliner Limited said...

I'm still amazed that Freedomland did not make it. Beautiful picture, Thanks.

Chris Merritt said...

As to the similarities to Disneyland - you gotta realize that C.V. Wood had a lot to do with this park, he sold this project by billing himself as "the father of Disneyland" - or something similar to that - much to Walt Disney's consternation...

Anonymous said...

The "master planner of Disneyland" was the line he used in his promotional materials. The engine bears the Santa Fe logo because C.V. Wood sold sponsorship of Disneyland Railroad to Santa Fe because his father (Hunky Wood) had been a conductor on the Santa Fe in Texas and Oklahoma all his life. When Woody got the contract for Freedomland, he did the same thing in New York. Marsh was simply the president at Santa Fe when Freedomland was being built.