On view May–June 2025.
To celebrate the release of our new book, Walt Disney Treasures: Personal Art and Artifacts from The Walt Disney Family Museum, we are displaying rare and unique objects from the collection that are also featured in the book. Some of the artifacts showcased in the book and here have never been seen by the public. These objects will be on view for free in the museum’s Awards Lobby and will rotate periodically through the beginning of 2025. The next installation in this series celebrates Walt's lifelong love of trains.
Walt Disney’s passion for trains began at an early age. His father Elias—who worked as a laborer of many trades—would feed his son’s locomotive fascination with stories about his work laying tracks and building railways for the Union Pacific Railroad. Walt’s uncle, Michael Martin, was an engineer for the Santa Fe Railroad and would wave to him and his brothers as he drove through their childhood hometown of Marceline, Missouri. This strong childhood connection to trains led Walt to dream of being a railway engineer, and while his life took a different route, he maintained an interest in railroads as an adult. He built the miniature Carolwood Pacific Railroad in his backyard on Carolwood Drive in Los Angeles—fabricating some of the cars and their hardware himself, in addition to maintaining the engine. The train was inspired by the Central Pacific Railroad, and he named its steam locomotive Lilly Belle, after his wife Lillian.
The Carolwood inspired an even bigger project: “Disneyland park came along,” Walt recalled, “I had the excitement of creating an honest-to-goodness railroad—well, five-eighths scale anyway—the Disneyland and Santa Fe [Railroad].” Whenever Walt was at Disneyland, he was the official chief engineer of the Santa Fe & Disneyland Railroad. Walt kept his engineer’s outfit in his apartment above the Main Street firehouse so he could change into costume whenever he had time to spare. He would then tell the on-duty engineer to take a break and would enjoy some “throttle time.” Many guests had no idea that Walt Disney himself was operating the train they were riding.