The Fred Gurley, October 1971
I'm sure that many of you, like me, are fans of the Disneyland Railroad locomotives. What's not to love? And thanks to books like "Welcome Aboard the Disneyland Railroad" by GDB friend Steve DeGaetano, my appreciation has only grown over the years. Both of today's scans are from October, 1971, and feature the "Fred Gurley". Ol' #3! Unlike the C.K. Holliday and the E.P. Ripley, the "Fred Gurley" is a genuine antique, built in 1894 by the Baldwin Locomotive Works. It went into service at Disneyland on March 28, 1958.
The fellow in the cab is annoyed that a woman's foot is sticking out. Hasn't she heard the safety spiel? Doesn't she know that mountain lions could take that foot off in one chomp? Oh well, she was warned. I love seeing that Santa Fe was still the sponsor of the railroad - it would continue until September 30, 1974. Three more years after this photo was taken!
18 comments:
Major-
"... a woman's foot is sticking out". She was working on matching her tan lines-! The Fred Gurley was emanatively suited for just such a purpose.
Thanks, Major.
Move it or lose it, honey!
I'm getting déjà vu all over again. You showed us a very similar photo a month or so ago (maybe 2 or 3 months ago). I don't remember if it was the Fred Gurley though. It's a nice picture, but it's hard to see the details of the train in the shadows.
Ah, this one is easier to see. People have scale, and this engineer is making the train look small. I think that woman's foot is the only thing left of the woman... the mountain lions already got the rest. Like you said, she was warned.
Thanks, Major.
Eh, the DL RR locomotives are all right, I guess, but I really like the old color scheme on #41 Red Cliff over at Knott's. Now there's a paint job to set the heart a'racin'!
Note that a passenger platform gate across the tracks is open. I wonder if it's always like that now that no passengers ever stand on that platform.
JB, unlike the first two locomotives, the C.K. Holliday (named for the first president of the Santa Fe) and E.P. Ripley (named for the warrant officer aboard the Nostromo), the Gurley isn't a scaled down model - it's a full-sized, historic, narrow-gauge locomotive. It's supposed to look this small.
Yep, the Fred Gurley is an actual narrow gauge plantation locomotive. Disney PR will tell us that it hauled sugar cane from the plantation fields to the shipping docks of New Orleans, but this is just bluster. We can see the bell air ringer with the smokestack behind it in the second photo.
I must have been four or five when I visited Disneyland for the first time, when the trains were still Santa Fe sponsored. Couldn't read, of course, but somehow, "Santa Fe" entered my consciousness. I remember going into a model train store, The Roundhouse, on Lankershim Blvd. in North Hollywood as a teen, and buying a round "Santa Fe" patch, which I wanted to sew to an engineer hat, like I had seen so many years earlier at Disneyland. At the time, I didn't realize the SF&D hat patches (which you can barely see on the engineer's hat in the second photo) were a bit different than the regular Santa Fe design. But the simple image of that cross-in-a-circle design had imprinted itself on my memory at a very early age from a trip to Disneyland.
No doubt because of the SF&D RR, the Santa Fe is still one of my favorite railroads.
Yep, it's a real vintage train alright. The biggest downside is that it sometimes can't make it through the double loops on the thrillseeker part of the track. That's ok. It knocks the mountain lions off.
The woman's foot has the same enticing arch as Claudette Colbert's in the "It Happened One Night" hitchhiking scene. Which makes this a Girley photo.
The train is about to enter my favorite tunnel in Disneyland, pre-Splash Mountain; it was lengthy and had several rocky niches with atmospheric branches and colored lighting. If anyone has pictures , please write to me in care of Dr. Freud.
Nanook, I’m all for working on one’s tan lines at Disneyland, and will be sure to do it myself next time I go!
TokyoMagic!, that’s probably what the guy in the cab was thinking!
JB, I’m sure you’re right about my posting a similar photo before, or several similar photos, they were all from the same batch as these two, and showed the E.P. Ripley. You’ll have to go all the way back to May 31st to see those! If people have scale, maybe they should use a pumice stone or a scrub brush. You make a good point about the woman’s foot.
Chuck, I’ve heard that they are going to be repainting the Red Cliff to purple and orange (a browny-orange), which really sounds magnificent and authentic. I always assumed that DLRR employees used those little buildings to take breaks or to call their mommies on the phone when they feel lonely, which might explain the open gate. Hey, Ripley (of “Alien”) was named “Ellen”, what was her middle name??
Steve DeGaetano, I guess there’s something romantic about the idea of a little train hauling sugar cane in New Orleans? Or maybe they meant Sugar Kane, the nightclub performer. I once saw a show with a woman named Candy Cane, but that’s another story. It’s pretty clear that the Disneyland Railroad made a strong impression on you as a child! I don’t remember The Roundhouse on Lankershim, but I do remember a model train store in Pasadena, if I recall correctly it was way east on Colorado Boulevard. It couldn’t possibly still be there, could it? Like you, seeing that Santa Fe logo in Disneyland is always great, and I miss it in photos after they stopped their sponsorship. I had an opportunity to buy a hat badge from Disneyland, but lost interest when I saw that it did not have the Santa Fe logo on it.
Stu29573, it would be able to do the loops, but only if diamonds were shoveled into the firebox. I do that for my own private railroad!
Stefano, it’s been a while since I’ve seen “It Happened One Night”, and I think I was looking at Claudette’s gam more than her foot. I wish I had vivid memories of things like that tunnel with the colored lights (etc) like you do!
I have similar memories of the Santa Fe logo. A branch line ran near our farm and the circle-cross sign was on a post at the road crossing. The school bus always stopped where it could be seen. Going to Disneyland and seeing the logo on the monorail was an extra frisson of reality. You knew the future was in good hands.
I also remember the fake roots and mood lighting in that tunnel. Just enough light to render the darkness visible. Claudette Colbert…
Thanks Major!
JG
Major, you're thinking of the Whistle Stop ("The Original Whistle Stop,") located at 2490 E. Colorado Blvd. It's still there. One of the best...
As for the Santa Fe, an actual railroad sponsoring the trains with its logo everywhere, Bruce Gordon and David Mumford in "The Nicke Tour" said that having that veneer of reality made the fantasy better.
Have to say I agree with them.
MAJOR : that’s the Original WhistleStop model railroad shop and it’s still in business . It’s one of the oldest continuously operating shops - it opened in 1946.
At WDI there is a area in the 1401 building model shop called “the chum room” and you can use for free ( without having to deduct the cost from the current project) leftover supplies and parts from projects past . There’s also salvaged parts and pieces from destroyed or canabalized models free to use. In a cabinet is lots of unused detail pieces - mostly scale figures and they have “WHISTLE STOP PASADENA” price tags. On them. Someone once mentioned they were leftover stock from
A pretty big purchase for the 1980 EPCOT CENTER model!
And now a return from a long overseas vacation.... G'day everyone.
Steve De.....thinking about your desire to attach the Santa Fe logo onto an engineer's hat brought back memories from my time in the 50s when Engineer Bill was on TV. Everybody wanted a hat like his! "Red light...Green light!". Maybe somebody will recall.. KS
Maybe that lady with the leg sticking out was Goldie from KBF?
JG
@ KS-
Welcome back. And oh yes - I remember Engineer Bill (Bill Stella) and 'Red Light - Green Light'; with the possibility of milk spillage.
Memories of when corporate names at Disneyland were ... endearing. In the early 60s, a preteen trusted big companies and seeing names like Kodak, General Electric, TWA and Chicken of the Sea were stamps of legitimacy. Heck, even Monsanto was wholesome and healthy back then.
In a few years current events and puberty made us surly and cynical, and there was no longer automatic affection for big brand names. Disney itself, the last studio that could movie tickets on the strength of the company's name, struggled with a generation turning to American International.
When passions cooled, we felt something was missing when the pirate ship was just a pirate ship, the big GE logo vanished from the Carousel of Progress, and the railroad lost its tenuous link to real-world rails.
I was going somewhere with this, but it's late and I'm blurry.
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