Saturday, March 24, 2012

The Viewliner

There's no "Anything Goes" post today... just good old Disneyland.

From a large color negative (possibly a dupe), we get this swell shot of Tomorrowland, probably 1957-ish. I always love seeing Tomorrowland from the air, and the fact that we get a primo look at the Viewliner is a real bonus! For a futuristic train, it sure takes a lot of its styling from typical automobile designs of the period. The Viewliner station is pretty simple, much like the Disneyland Railroad equivalent.

The muddy lake to our left and the landscaping (or lack thereof) is not exactly something to admire. You can see the Autopia, the Space Bar, the Skyway (naturally), the Astro Jets, and the Rocket to the Moon too; all for one low low price!


I'm going to try an experiment and remove the comment verification feature (because I hate the two-word CAPTCHA that is now being implemented); to be honest I expect to be spammed like crazy now, so don't be too surprised if the captcha comes back.

11 comments:

TokyoMagic! said...

Yay, the Viewliner! Yay, comment verification is removed! Good luck, Major...I hope you don't get tons of spam. I may just remove it from my blog too. First there was that annoying "slide show" view of the photos (which I'm glad you turned off on your blog) and now there's the annoying blurry two-word comment verification thingy. What other annoying changes are we going to have thrust upon us by Blogger?

Chiana_Chat said...

Maybe that is a dupe but I'm enjoying it no less. I failed to notice the triangular sign over the ViewLiner station before. Is that a flower bed in front of the sign in front of the station? If so, it looks like an older guy is really in danger of the dog house, 'cause he seems to be running to get a flower. Ok maybe he's running to catch the ViewLiner, but my story is more romantic. The ViewLiner is at least half occupied so far, so it was drawing passengers for sure.

Some may make fun of how "quaint" the Viewliner, Rocket to the Moon/Mars or Peoplemover may have been, but they tried. Just compare it to what the far richer current company has contributed to society as a glimpse of future transport: nothing! They've only subtracted some of the decades old attractions they were given, offering enhanced cosmetics, landscaping, other people's entertainment franchises (Star Wars, Aliens) and gimmicks but contributing no ideas of value. [ /rant ]

Is there a way to set it so it just CAPTCHAs if you're not signed in? It's silly it CAPTCHAs users who are signed in, because they had to pass a CAPTCHA to sign up! If the SPAM got past the CAPTCHA to create an account, it already beat the CAPTCHA (or is an older account that shoulda been removed). Anyway, enough about that. I appreciate your thoughtfulness on this Maj. If it doesn't work out and you have to reinstate it, I fully understand.

Thufer said...

Very nice shot.

Thanks for being pro-active on the CAPTCHAs; good luck.

Major Pepperidge said...

TM!, I have the settings set so that after 2 days, any comment left must be moderated by me. So far I have already deleted 4 spam comments, but Blogger just sends me an email in which I can indicate that the comment is spam and then delete it in a single click.

And I hope Blogger does not continue to throw more road blocks in our way. It's free though, so I guess we can't complain too much.

Chiana, that guy DOES look like he's running, doesn't it? Weird. I've seen quite a few photos of the Viewliner in which it looks mostly empty. And as for your rant, I feel your pain!!

Yes, you can set it so that just signed-in readers can comment, but (as I mentioned in an earlier reply to you) I do have nice commenters who appear to not have Google accounts.

Thufer, we'll see how it goes....

Robert said...

Allways love seeing early pictures of disneylands vonroll

dfan07 said...

Did you know that the Viewliner was modeled after GM's Aerotrain? If you didn't, then have a look at this:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aerotrain_%28GM%29

The Viewliner Limited said...

The finest piece of railroad machinery ever built by man. A great man, Bob Gurr.

Douglas McEwan said...

Didn't Bob Gurr basically say he made it out of a Buick?

Rusty said...

CHEAP VIAGRA!!! Haha..just kidding. Anyway, I'll never get tired of old DL pictures. Still waiting for you, or someone to make a time machine so I can just spend one day in 50's era DL. Oh, how it's changed. Thanks for the picture.

Connie Moreno said...

Super upber awesome picture! So how'd it go with the spam? Personally, I like to dice it, fry it up and then mix is with eggs.

JG said...

TY for tweaking the responses, Major. The captcha feature and lack of email followup has really cut down on my participation.

I still read every post! But, I miss the conversations of my friends.

JG