Thursday, February 13, 2020

The Only Train Of Its Kind!



How can one image yield three additional images? When it’s of the Disneyland Viewliner, the “only train of its kind in the world!” That may not necessarily be a good thing, especially since the Viewliner lasted barely a year at Disneyland (June 26, 1957–Sept. 15, 1958).



Nearby you can see the Disneyland Railroad Fantasyland Depot (background) and the entrance to the Motor Boat Cruise (foreground):



And of course a closeup of the Viewliner itself. It looks so tiny when you see people next to it. It does not look very comfortable! One can easily see why Walt scrapped it in favor of the Monorail!



For you youngsters, the two boxes in the foreground are called phone booths. That’s where people used to go when they had to make a phone call and they were away from home.

See more Disneyland Viewliner photos at my main website.

4 comments:

Stefano said...

Probably for the best that the clunky Viewliner had to go, but I miss those circus colors Fantasyland used to have, as seen on the train station. The area felt livelier and more eye catching then.

Yes you youngsters, phone booths, where people made calls in privacy, with courtesy for others, and got to the point quickly and got off the phone. Not like today's mobile and relentless interminable jaw flapping drivel, shouted out in every corner of the public life. Progress!

Anonymous said...

When I was much much younger I had a red blow molded plastic fish. It was rather large (about two feet long, I think) and rather pointless. For reasons that I can't quite pin down, the Viewliner reminds me of that fish...

Chuck said...

I think that sign is a bit misleading - there were actually two trainsets. :-) But I agree that building a train out of Oldsmobile parts was a pretty unique concept. Bob Gurr rocks.

Phone booths were also convenient for changing into your superhero costume in a hurry. I think there's some sort of direct, provable, causal connection between the rise of cell phones and the decline in quality Superman movies.

Daveland said...

Stefano - Preaching to the choir on those very public mobile phone calls!

Stu - let me know when you figure it out!

Chuck - I think you're onto something about the lack of quality Superman movies!