FULLERTON – For the first time in Disneyland’s 50-year history, the inaugural locomotive engine that Walt Disney navigated around the park is headed into the neighboring community.
The E.P. Ripley engine and a tender will be transported from Anaheim to the Fullerton Transportation Center for Railroad Days on Saturday and Sunday.
The four-mile journey marks the first time the Ripley will have an out-of-park experience.
“I’m thrilled to be able to bring one of the most popular attractions we’ve had in our eight-year history,” said Fred Canfield, event chairman.
Disneyland workers will help load the 11-ton engine, a 4-ton tender and 30 feet of track onto a flatbed truck for the trek. The equipment will be on display from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday and Sunday at 120 E. Santa Fe Ave. Admission is free.
Dale Tetley, who works in the park’s roundhouse, said bringing the engine to the community has been his dream for years. The decision to “share the magic and excitement” of having the engine as part of the Fullerton event tied in with the park’s golden anniversary, said Rich Langhorst, Disneyland Resort senior vice president.
Yet, no one is more excited to visit the Fullerton celebration and tell the Ripley story than Michael Broggie, 63, who was Disney’s choice to help take the throttle for the initial excursion.
“It was the day before my 13th birthday in June 1955 when my dad took me to a preview party at the park,” Broggie recalled. “I didn’t know it was pre-arranged, but when the shiny brass engine came out from the train shed into the sunlight, Walt looked out at the crowd and picked me to ride with him and Mickey Mouse in the cab.
“That ranks at the top of the list for the best birthday ever,” Broggie added.
Broggie’s father, Roger, was the first “imagineer,” equivalent to today’s “inventors” for park attractions. He would often take his family to Disney’s home on Carolwood Drive in Holmby Hills to ride the miniature train Roger built in 1949. “Walt was like an apprentice to my father, and learned to work with machine tools in a little red barn in the back yard,” Broggie said. “Sometime as many as 75 people would arrive for a ride aboard the little train, and Walt didn’t know any of them.”
Broggie said his father helped build the Ripley on the Walt Disney Studios lot in Burbank. The engine was named for Edward Payson Ripley, who was the first president of the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway.
“Now, the engines at Walt Disney World are named for Walt and Dad,” Broggie said.
Other stories of Disney’s love affair with the rails are chronicled in Broggie’s books, “Walt Disney’s Railroad Story: The Small-Scale Fascination That Led to a Full-Scale Kingdom” and “Walt Disney’s Happy Place,” which he will bring to this weekend’s events.
Railroad Days, which drew more than 30,000 last year, is designed to raise awareness for the Fullerton Railway Plaza Association’s proposed Southern California rail attraction.
Contact the writer: (714) 704-3762 or bgiasone@ocregister.com
