The Trains of Disneyland

Among his many, many, many interests, Walt Disney was passionately in love with trains. Rail enthusiasm is a fairly common hobby, of course, but even among the many people with the inclination to build model railways, only a slim handful are dedicated enough to build an actual steam-powered rideable one in their backyard. Small wonder, then, that one of the inaugural attractions Walt planned for Disneyland was a train ride even more impressive than the Carolwood Pacific. Or that many more trains joined it in the years that followed.

This is a post about those trains. That's all—no deep philosophy or scathing opinions, just some warm and fuzzy feelings toward this surprisingly common attraction type. Think of it as part After-Action Report and part Sentimental Paleontology, with a big dollop of See Ya Real Soon added to the mix.

To be clear, I'm only talking about trains that are presented as trains. The Space Mountain vehicles technically qualify as trains but are presented as rockets.

All abooooaaaarrrrrrd!

Armchair Imagineering: Plussing the Show

“Always plus the show,” Walt Disney was known to say. I have no idea if he innovated the practice of using “plus” as a transitive verb, but fans have picked it up right alongside other Disneyland insider jargon, including “weenie”* and “protein spill.”** To Walt, “plussing” meant any sort of improvement on what was already there, but as language does, the term seems to have evolved. When most people talk about “plussing,” they are definitely not referring to new attractions or even wholesale renovations of existing ones. Nor is the term used in connection with essential maintenance—fixing a broken animatronic is not plussing…more like “un-minusing.”*** Plussing, rather, is making a small improvement to the park—a new garden planter here, an array of verisimilitude-enhancing props there, an Easter egg added to a show scene to reward the sharp-eyed and/or well-read.

There is no hard bright line separating the mere plusses from more significant alterations, but we know the difference when we see it. The 2015 changes to the Matterhorn are too extensive to be considered plusses, but the revamp of Big Thunder Mountain’s climactic scene might count. The addition of a cross-country skiing troupe to A Christmas Fantasy Parade definitely counts. Here’s another great example, spotted (by yours truly) just over a week ago in the Enchanted Chamber:

Pictured: The funniest scene in any Disney movie ever. Period.

There is an infinite “possibility space” of plusses that could be made to Disneyland. Here are some I would like to see.

60 Disneyland Diamonds: 1956-1965

Welcome back! Last week, I announced a new post series I'll be running here at the Disneyland Dilettante in honor of Disneyland's 60^th birthday: 60 Disneyland Diamonds for the Diamond Anniversary. So let's get the ball rolling with the first ten!