Tuesday, October 06, 2015

Vintage Disneyland & Santa Fe Railroad Tickets!

Years ago, I shared some of my vintage tickets on the Vintage Disneyland Tickets blog (where else?) - one of my favorite Disneyland blogs, which has now gone the way of the dodo. Anyway, I figured that I could certainly share those same tickets here without too many complaints.

Both of today's tickets are for the Santa Fe & Disneyland R.R., and are quite scarce, especially in this never-used condition. Notice the "conductor's check" at the far right - this is the part that was usually torn off by the ticket taker.

Mr. Vintage Disneyland Tickets estimated that these are from 1957, and who am I to argue? Each ticket stub lists only three depots - Main Street, Frontierland, and Fantasyland. No Tomorrowland Depot, which opened in 1958. Love that "Globe" watermark!


Here is a pink version - both tickets are for adult riders, so I'm not sure if the color had any significance. Other than the hue (and the serial number) they are essentially identical. I still remember when these were offered to me - - I was not going to buy them; a good friend of mine told me that I would be crazy to pass them up. He was right!


I have a few additional DLRR tickets to share in a future post.

22 comments:

Nanook said...

Major-

Hello - Complaint Dept.-?? Oh... just kidding-! Seeing these tickets is the prefect accompaniment while reading Steve DeGaetano's latest book: Disneyland Railroad - A Complete History in Words and Pictures

Thanks, Major (and Steve)

Steve DeGaetano said...

They are beautiful and rare--little pieces of artwork that you could take home to remember your trip to Walt Disney's Magic Kingdom! Thanks Major!

K. Martinez said...

No complaint from me. I love Disney ephemera whether it be DL, WDW or WDP.

Anyone know if the loco on the tickets is accurate?

Thanks, Major.

Chuck said...

Ken - It's actually a pretty accurate representation of locomotive #2, the E.P. Ripley, and the six original 100-series passenger coaches.

Nanook - You've received your copy of the book already? Cool! Mine's not here yet, which is probably OK because I wouldn't have been able to see it well enough to read it until this week anyway. Looking forward to its arrival...

Steve DeGaetano said...

Thanks Nanook!

K Martinez, the rendering on the ticket is actually a pretty nice drawing of the E.P. Ripley with the passenger train. This is the ticket you'd get at Main Street Station. The ticket you would get at Frontierland had a nice drawing of the C.K. Holliday with the freight train. It was also a different size. Go figure.

Steve DeGaetano said...

Oops. Didn't' see Chuck's comment before I posted!

Chuck said...

Steve - I didn't realize the tickets were different sizes for the two original trainsets. I guess those of us who work(ed) for the Government don't have a monopoly on inexplicable nonstandardization. :-)

Did they continue issuing train-specific tickets after the Fantasyland Station opened?

Steve DeGaetano said...

Chuck, Fantasyland Station was built in 1956, and the tickets were issued into 1957. It's a little murky, but I haven't seen any evidence that these beautiful tickets were issued after two-train operation ended.

Matthew said...

Yes, but do you have a ticket for the Steamship Mark Twain and a "Romantic trip around the River's of America"?

Great addition to your collection and both blog sites. Always interesting to see the wealth of knowledge shared on these blogs.

Always your pal,
Amazon Belle

Major Pepperidge said...

Nanook, wow, you have your copy of Steve’s book already?

Steve DeGaetano, it sure seems like a lot of people saved their tickets, either loose or in scrap books.

K. Martinez, all I know is that it looks good to me.

Chuck, it’s like the Tom Petty song says, “The waiting is the hardest part”.

Steve DeGaetano, now I’m going to have to look for a picture of the drawing of the C.K. Holliday with the freight train; wish I had tickets with that drawing.

Chuck, I do have one other unused train ticket that has only one stub rather than the two pictured here. I wonder if that is basically what Steve meant? Mine still shows the passenger train, though.

Steve DeGaetano, I wonder if anybody at the archives has that information? Or is it just lost to history?

Matthew, I have a friend who has some unused vintage Steamship tickets - with the “conductor’s checks” on them. They are awesome!

Steve DeGaetano said...

Major, I just sent you an e-mail...

Pegleg Pete said...

These are great, thanks. As a fan of ephemera, I really miss Tim's blog.

Nanook said...

Hey Kids-

I'm reading my on-line copy.... I have no special powers. Not yet, anyway.

Steve DeGaetano said...

Nanook, I'd love to hear your thoughts--positive or negative!

steampassages *at* gmail dot com

K. Martinez said...

Chuck, thanks for answering my question.

Steve DeGaetano, thank you too for the cool additional information on those tickets. With that new bit of info, I'm motivated to hunt for those tickets now.

Nanook said...

@ Steve-

I've only just started, having just finished the Forward(s), Preface and Introduction and beginning Chapter 1. But by all accounts so far, it promises to be a wonderful journey, which has been difficult to put-down - although I've been forced to do so these last several days. I have not 'skimmed-ahead', but will allow the story to unfold with both pictures and text simultaneously.

Heck - I need to get back to it.

Steve DeGaetano said...

You're welcome, K.M. Here's the Freight Train Ticket:

http://dldhistory.com/disneyland/att/onstage/tms-447w.jpg

As you can see, it was "Good for Freight or Cattle Passage." Which was appropriate, seeing that before the cattle cars had steps installed, one would enter those cars by literally walking up a cattle ramp into the cars at Frontierland Station!

Steve DeGaetano said...

Thanks Nanook! I do hope you enjoy it.

K. Martinez said...

Steve, That is so cool! I would've loved to have gone to Disneyland during those years and walk up the cattle ramp into the cars. It's like a demonstration of a real working railroad and not just a "theme park" railroad. Thanks fore the link!

Steve DeGaetano said...

Sure thing, KM.

I just noticed something interesting on that large image of the Fast Freight ticket that I never noticed before: The image of the Holliday has a cab roof hatch--something the "real thing" didn't have until several years after the Park had opened (see photo from yesterday). I wonder how the artist came up with that? Was he psychic? =)

Chuck said...

Ken - I would have love to have ridden it that way, too, but I've read most guests weren't all that enamored with being treated like cattle. I don't know why they were complaining about it being "too realistic" - it's not like they were slaughtered at the end of the ride.

Steve - I wonder if the ticket artist added that hatch because the Ripley had one and he/she thought it looked good and logical? Or was it based on pre-construction concept art? With the short timeline between delivery of the trains to the Park and Opening Day and the need to have the tickets printed in advance, I wouldn't be surprised if the artist never saw the rolling stock hooked together as a train in person before the artwork was due.

Steve DeGaetano said...

Chuck, I've never seen any concept art that shows a hatch. It may be just as you said--that the Ripley had one, and the artist used artistic license, not having seen the train.