It’s hard to believe today when Disney is the leading studio in Hollywood, but a continuing theme for most of Walt Disney’s life was a shortage of funds to accomplish his dreams, even though most of them ended up being profitable. That only ended with the success of Mary Poppins, which earned enough money for him to buy the land that would become Disney World.
Click image to download a 2.2-MB PDF of this brochure from the David Rumsey map collection.
In the early 1950s, however, he had trouble raising funds to build Disneyland, so he invited corporations to sponsor parts of the park. Naturally, the sponsor for the Disneyland railroad would be the Santa Fe Railway, whose tracks came closer to Disneyland than those of UP or SP. This sponsorship continued until 1974, when Disneyland no longer needed a co-sponsor and Santa Fe was no longer trying to attract passengers.
This brochure is ostensibly about the Santa Fe & Disneyland Railroad, but most of it is really about the Santa Fe Railway. One-quarter of one side has a map of Disneyland while all of the other side is a map of the Santa Fe Railway. Half of the first side has eight photos, six of which are Santa Fe trains and two are Disney trains.
One thing the brochure doesn’t have is a date. Disneyland opened in 1955, but one of the brochure’s photos is of the “new Hi-Level El Capitan,” when it went into service on July 15, 1956. The brochure could be from 1957, but I’m dating it to 1956.
TECHNICALLY, the SP came closer, with two spurs on either side of the park, one of which was still active in 1956 (and remains active today).
It’s about a 25 minute walk (Google Maps is a bit finicky with some pedestrian passages) from the nearest point on the line to the park entrance, but only five minute walk from another point on the line to the parking lot (which really speaks volumes about the parking situation).
An at-the-time cheap spur of only one mile would have been enough to bring passengers directly to the park entrance.
Unfortunately, for all of his love of trains, Walt wasn’t anticipating quite how big the park would get, and of course the SP was already losing interest in passenger trains by this point.
Of course, the problem with this line is that would have required a long battle with traffic running up Alameda Street. But cooperation with UP would have offered a shortcut.
Alas, but to dream.
My maternal grandfather and his business partners needed “cheap” land to build a printing plant, so back in the early 1950s they chose a site in Anaheim at 700-708 W. South Street. The site was/is adjacent to the Santa Fe Surf Line, and had a siding for deliveries of paper. The site was just 2 miles from where Disneyland Park would be completed in 1955.