Saturday, August 22, 2009

Magic Moment: Walt in the Park, August 1960



I didn’t notice anything particularly stunning about this shot from an August 1960 batch until I scanned it and looked closer. This guest happened to be in the right place at the right time and captured Walt Disney himself at the tracks, commemorating the 10 millionth passenger on the Disneyland Railroad: Raymond S. Tray Sleeper, Jr. Also standing nearby is R.G. Rydin, Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe Executive VP. Here’s a detail shot and also a previously posted publicity shot of the same moment.





See more Disneyland Railroad photos at my website.

7 comments:

TokyoMagic! said...

Very cool discovery, Dave!

Matterhorn1959 said...

Dave- I have another image from the same event. I posted it two years ago. Here is the link: http://matterhorn1959.blogspot.com/2007/09/boxcar-of-pennies.html

Another dignitary was Los Angeles kid's television personality Engineer Bill.

Daveland said...

Thanks for the link Patrick - love the closeup!

Major Pepperidge said...

FANTASTIC! What a wonderful find, and you did a great job with your research... I'm not sure I would have figure out the thing about the 10 millionth passenger.

Daveland said...

Major - fortunately for me there was a caption attached to the back of the BW publicity photo!

Chiana_Chat said...

Wow! What are the odds, Dave? Of another photo at the moment, let alone finding its way to you along with another that noted the moment. Fated! It's so neat for rail fans, you can tell how delighted that boy is and it's one function Walt would've enjoyed.

CoxPilot said...

I was a great fan of both engineer Bill and Sheriff John. Kids TV of those days was very personal, even though less sophisticated, and was great on those little 13" screens.