Thursday, February 02, 2023

All Aboard! Disneyland, July 1960



Two consecutive images that were dated July 1960 show a family getting ready to board the cars of the Disneyland Railroad at the Main Street station. A detailed view shows the Disneyland Hotel sign in the background, a ticket book in the woman’s hand (gasp! tickets!), and a brochure/guidebook held by the boy with a crew cut.



This appears to be the guidebook he is holding, which makes me think the date was written/stamped incorrectly or that this roll of slide film sat in the camera for awhile.



The next slide shows how many people had visited Disneyland at this time:



Based on this image commemorating the 10 millionth Disneyland Railroad passenger from August 1960, that would mean 4 million people went to Disneyland in one month to bump the attendance number up to 22,000,000. I know the Park was popular, but I kind of doubt it was THAT popular!



Most likely the two shots I have were from late 1958/early 1959 instead. They’re still fabulous, so there!

See more Disneyland Railroad Main Street Station photos at my main website.

3 comments:

  1. Bryan9:20 AM

    Wow, that last picture. I really had to zoom in on that one to enjoy it. Walt wearing a train engineer cap standing out next to the train with a band. Amazing. Yeah that alone should have brought in 4 million people within one month. Kidding, but I think you're right about the dates being off. I suspect you're right about the film just being processed years later.

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  2. Anonymous2:21 PM

    And I'm fascinated with the background on the first two shots...that being of the Disneyland Hotel and the Richfield(?) gas station in full view. KS

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  3. If those photos were taken in late '58 or early '59, the excursion cars the family is standing next to were almost brand new, having been introduced in March of '58. I bet they still had that "new train smell."

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