“You can really feel Walt’s presence here.”
For years, countless Disneyland fans and cast members alike have told me that. It’s not something you hear nearly as often at Walt Disney World, though. That always made sense to me. Walt personally oversaw the construction of Disneyland, but died almost five years before Magic Kingdom opened. If you’re going to feel his presence anywhere, it’s at the park he built.
That oft-shared sentiment was very much on my mind before I made my first visit to the Happiest Place on Earth recently. Would I, someone who has loved Walt Disney World for almost 40 years, feel Walt’s presence at Disneyland? I had my doubts for my own reasons, but I wanted to try. And to make that happen I knew where to look for him. If I were going to find Walt, I’d try finding him in the part of the park that meant the most to him personally, the Disneyland Railroad.
My doubts over feeling Walt’s “presence” had nothing to do with doubting anyone else’s sincerity. It is quite the opposite, actually. I absolutely believe they have that experience. As someone who loves learning the history and lore behind the places I care about, I would be the exact type of person who would have a similar one at Disneyland. I’m also a sentimental person, and no one does sentiment better than Disney. Plus, you know, I also really love going to Walt Disney World. I know some will scoff at that, but being there make me feel close to my late sister and our childhood family trips.(Go ahead. Scoff now. Scoff now.) Now it brings me joy as something my wife and I share with our son. (Still scoffing? Bold. But, uh, he wasn’t on this trip because we were in Anaheim for a wedding, so….)
The difference is those are real people I have real memories with. I’m sentimental, yes, but I am sentimental about places and the people who went there with me. I’ve never been nostalgic about famous people*, especially historical figures. That’s what Walt Disney is to me. He created something tangible and enduring I love, but he also died long before I was born. Disney as a place might be real to me, but Walt Disney is more like a legend.
(*This has been true my entire life. I’m from Massachusetts, but when I stand outside Paul Revere’s house in Boston’s North End I don’t “feel” his presence. It’s incredible his house is still there and you can go inside. But all I tend to “feel” is hungry since it’s right near one of my favorite restaurants.)
Despite all of that, I wanted to give myself the best shot to have this exact Disney fan experience. And as someone deeply invested in the history of both Walt Disney and all of the parks that bear his name, I knew the best shot I had to “feel” his presence was on the Disneyland Railroad. That was always going to be my best shot I had to find Walt.
Although this little vacation was personal, I spoke to a Disneyland rep about my visit before I went. Without me mentioning any one of this, she said, unprompted, the same thing so many others had. “You can really feel Walt’s presence here.” I then told her what I just told all of you, that I was curious if I would have that experience but wasn’t sure I would. I then told her my plan was to ride the train since it meant the most to Walt. That’s when she asked if my wife and I would be interested in Disneyland’s Railroad Guided Tour. It’s an intimate 90-minute excursion you can book. It lets guests “get a look into Walt Disney’s love for trains and discover the impact it had on the Disneyland Resort.”
Yes, I did want to do it.
The tour meets on Main Street, the other part of the park I most associate with Walt since he had an apartment there. Guests receive a commemorative pin with their name, a tour badge with a lanyard you get to keep, a hand fan, and a snack. (Our group of 10 got a Strawberry-stuffed Croissant from Jolly Holiday Bakery Cafe. It not only ruled, it was on my “must-try” handwritten “snack list,” a real thing I spent real time coming up with before visiting. At the end of the tour, we also got a great Disneyland map poster.)
The tour then takes you to different parts of the park, starting out front, to learn about Walt’s lifelong relationship with trains. His passion led directly—as in “Disneyland might not exist if Walt didn’t love trains” kind of directly—to the creation, shape, design, and construction of the park. As we would learn, it also shaped many of the attractions throughout. Those attractions then went on to influence Disney parks around the world. Each park is essentially a stop along Walt’s own enduring train line.
Our guide was Giorgio, a wonderfully affable and knowledge host whose Jungle Cruise skipper sense of humor helped keep the experience from ever feeling dry. The tour includes a lot of information and anecdotes spanning Walt’s childhood to the construction of Disneyland and beyond. The laughter from the group showed Giorgio’s puns, some truly terrible in the best way, helped keep everyone engaged. He was polished but wholly sincere the way the best cast members always are.
It helped he was always easy to hear even amid a packed spring break crowd, because the tour includes ear pieces. Disneyland makes it so you never have to huddle or worry about your host getting drowned out. That also allows you to look around while your guide is speaking.
For the first half of the tour, Giorgio took us along multiple spots on Main Street, U.S.A. We then went to Frontierland, the Central Plaza, and Fantasyland. The last stop, in the shadow of the Matterhorn, was my favorite. There we learned about how Walt’s vacation to Germany led to Disneyland’s monorail. As the monorail (which I loved as a kid at Walt Disney World) quietly glided past Giorgio as he spoke it was hard not feel sentimental.
As someone who cares about the history and development of Disney Parks, I found the tour informative and fun. I already knew a lot of what we learned, but there were still new insights and stories I had never heard or read before. But what I really appreciated is that the tour is also really peaceful even among the throngs of people in the park. I’m someone who tends, no matter how much they try otherwise, to go 900 mph at Disney. The tour forced me to slow down and take the whole park in, all without worrying about wait times or lightning lanes. It was just really nice.
Only, I hadn’t felt Walt’s presence. Not yet. But something fundamentally changed for me when I asked Giorgio a question between stops. I told him I was planning to write about this tour and was curious what he thought was the most important thing for people to know. What Giorgio told me instantly changed how I felt about what I was doing. “It’s not that Walt loved trains,” he said, “It’s that he was obsessed with them.”
“Obsession.” It seemed so obvious the second Giorgio said it. It should have been, considering everything we’d been hearing about Walt’s lifelong experiences being around, working on, and building his own trains both at home and in his park. And yet, it hadn’t been the word or idea that had shaped the way I understood Walt’s relationship with trains.
“Passion.” “Love.” Those are the words I’d been thinking of. “Love” is the word Disney itself uses in the description for the tour. But those are different in meaningful ways from “obsession.” They don’t have the same connotation. They don’t suggest “compulsion” the way obsession does.
Once I heard Walt’s relationship to trains expressed that way, it reshaped the way I thought about every Disney park. Every attraction with a train element—the Disneyland Railroad, the monorail, Big Thunder Mountain, Casey Jr. Circus Train, Seven Dwarfs Mine Train, Mickey and Minnie’s Runaway Railway—whether Walt built them or not, they suddenly became a tangible extension of him. If all of Disneyland is special to Walt, his trains were something extra special within it. I knew that before. This was when I truly understood why.
I was thinking about what Giorgio said and what Walt’s obsession meant as we headed off for the second part of the tour. In ToonTown, we would finally ride the Disneyland Railroad inside the Lilly Belle.
Disneyland’s Lilly Belle is named for Walt’s wife, Lillian. She helped design and decorate the special parlor car in 1974, almost a decade after her husband’s death. It’s reserved for tours and VIP guests at the park. (The Lilly Belle was also the name of the miniature ridable model train Walt had at his own home. It was hugely influence in the creation of the Disneyland Railroad.)
The Lilly Belle contains personal items and decor taken from and inspired by the Disney family. It also looks a lot like it did when it first made its way around the park’s perimeter, the berm. That’s also why the Lilly Belle doesn’t have air conditioning. Excessive heat isn’t always a problem when you ride inside the enclosed parlor car. It was an issue on the record-setting hot March day we were there. To help us deal with the heat, everyone got personal electric fans.
(We actually missed the Lilly Belle’s train by a minute when we got to ToonTown. We had to wait for it to go around the whole park before getting in. Giorgio made up the delay to everyone by giving us two special Lightning Lane passes instead of just the guaranteed one that comes with the tour. That second Lightning Lane easily made up for the extra 45 minutes the tour ran. My wife and I used it to skip a two-hour wait for DCA’s Guardians of the Galaxy – Mission: BREAKOUT! later in the day. Like I said, well worth it.)
The Lilly Belle is a very cool attraction, especially if you care about trains, the history of the park, or Walt himself. It’s also a very unusual one at Disneyland, and not just because you can only ride it under special circumstances or via a pricey luxury tour ticket. It’s not a recreation of a train car Walt built or road. (Though it does resemble his Main Street apartment in many ways.) He never road in it himself, either. It’s just something fun and different that was made for VIPs. And yet, like everything else in the park, it felt very much like an extension of Walt. It was inspired by him and made to honor him. It was a tribute to his obsession. And that can be felt at every attraction in Disneyland and the many parks it spawned, because they only exist because of that obsession.
(That might sound like hyperbole, that without Walt’s love of trains Disneyland might not exist. That is until you learn about Ward Kimball, his own train obsession, and his long and vital partnership with Walt. Disneyland without Ward Kimball is impossible to even imagine.)
As our tour ended I was grateful to have done it. It’s expensive, yes, but it’s perfect for history lovers and those looking to experience the park in a different way. I also think it makes for an amazing gift.
And now is when I’m supposed to tell you that as we drove around the park—past scenes of dinosaurs and into Main Street U.S.A. (where we briefly met the train conductor), through Frontierland’s quiet beauty, and back to ToonTown—that it finally happened. This where I’m supposed to tell you that like so many others I felt Walt’s presence at Disneyland.
Only I didn’t. At least not in the way I feel my sister’s at the Magic Kingdom or my Uncle Peter’s when I’m in Boston’s North End. Instead I felt something else entirely: a new appreciation for something I already loved. Because while Walt Disney will always feel like a historical figure to me, as I rode in the Lilly Belle, Walt’s parks and what they mean to me felt more real than ever.
That tour helped me understand how Walt Disney turned his own obsession into something he could share with others. I understood how his obsession gave me something I love so much I feel compelled to share it with the people I love.
So no, I didn’t find Walt on the Disneyland Railroad. I found something even better. Fittingly, his train made me feel more connected to him.
Mikey Walsh is a staff writer at Nerdist. He wants to do more tours at Disney Parks. You can follow him on Bluesky at @burgermike. And also anywhere someone is ranking the Targaryen kings.