The Disneyland Book of Secrets 2014: One Local's Unauthorized, Rapturous and Indispensable Guide to the Happiest Places on Earth (63 page)

Unlike the
Monorail
, the
Disneyland Railroad
allows Guests to ride around and around the park as long as they please.  If you make one complete loop of the
Disneyland
, beginning at the
Main Street Train Station
, you’ve made the
Grand Circle Tour
.  It takes about 25 minutes.

Departing
from the
Main Street Station
, Guests are instantly plunged into the dense green foliage of
Adventureland
, with tantalizing glimpses of waterways and exotic structures.  A recorded narration begins, cued to your location on the train route; throughout your journey the narrator will point out landmarks and relay interesting historical nuggets, sometimes via jokes or puns.

Deep-voiced
Thurl Ravenscroft
, the famed vocal actor who gave voice to Tony the Tiger as well as
Disney
characters and tunes like
Grim Grinning Ghosts
, once provided the
Disneyland Railroad
narration, but his voice was replaced by newer recordings.

Your first stop is the
New Orleans Square Train Station
.  The station and its telegraph office (based on the station in
Disney
’s 1948 live-action feature
So Dear to My Heart
) are located on the left side of the train and are for show only. Guests can’t enter these structures, but instead queue and detrain on a covered platform to the train’s right.

If you want to visit
Pirates of the Caribbean
or the
Haunted Mansion
, eat a bowl of gumbo or drink a
Mint Julep
(non-alcoholic, of course), take a
Jungle Cruise
, seek the treasures of a forbidden temple, visit
Tarzan
’s crib (literally) or mosey on into
Frontierland
or
Critter Country
, then this is your stop.

The
New Orleans Square
Station
and telegraph offices are elegant set pieces but smaller than the grander
Main Street Station
, fitting for a train stop in the 1800’s.  Although Guests can’t enter the station, and can only view it across the narrow tracks, the
Imagineers
made every effort to give it the authentic feeling of a station in active use, down to the stacks of luggage.

You’ll hear the
“clickety-clack” of a telegraph repeating some message; the sounds are, in fact, the opening lines of
Walt
’s
Opening Day
speech rendered in Morse Code:

To all who come to Disneyland, welcome.  Here age relives fond memories of the past, and here youth may savor the challenge and promise of the future.

According to an anecdote by
Annual Passholder
and painstaking code breaker
George Eldridge
, when he set out to verify the content of the message in the late 1990’s, even going so far as to tape record it and parse the “clicks” and “clacks” on his home computer, he discovered that the message had been damaged and truncated.  Because understanding telegraph codes is a rare talent in modern times, no one else had noticed the problem.

When
Eldridge contacted
Disneyland
and
Disney Imagineering
to report his discovery, he wasn’t sure how they’d respond.  Would it matter to them that some words had been chopped out of the message?  It did.  With typical
Disney
dedication to getting every detail right, they not only listened, they worked with
Eldridge
to restore the original coded message!  Thanks to a sharp-eared Guest,
Walt
’s welcome is now correctly rendered.

Immediately upon departing the
New Orleans Square Train Station
, Guests are swept into a dark tunnel that runs behind the grounds of the
Haunted Mansion
and then cuts through a portion of
Critter Country
’s famed
Splash Mountain
.  Through a large glass pane, Guests are treated to a dazzling view of the
Splash Mountain
finale, where drenched Guests in their log craft drift past a miniature riverboat (the
Zip-a-Dee Lady
) and a large cast of
Audio-Animatronic
woodland creatures dance and sing
Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah
.  This glimpse sometimes lures Guests into
Splash Mountain
later in their visit.

The train emerges from the long tunnel just outside of
Splash Mountain
, chugs through wooded
Critter Country
, and then skirts the western and northern shores of the
Rivers of America
, passing a
Native American Chief
and a number of mechanical forest creatures.

The
train then plunges through a shorter tunnel and stretches of trees that somewhat shield Guests from
Mickey’s Toontown
to the north (left) and forbidden
backstage
areas to the south (right).  Sharp-eyed Guests catch glimpses of some of the workaday buildings, vehicles, and dustbins that are concealed throughout the park behind foliage, fences, and facades to keep from disrupting the
Disneyland magic
.

The next stop is the
Toontown Station
, just south of
Mickey’s Toontown
and north of
Fantasyland Theatre
.  A whimsically designed, slightly off-kilter red-shingled structure, this station has a fantastic, childlike feel appropriate for welcoming Guests visiting
Toontown
and
Fantasyland
.

Colorful, stylized crates, barrels, lanterns
, and pieces of luggage are stacked on the station platforms; see if the members of your party, particularly your little ones, can decide which
Disney
‘
Toon
character owns each piece of luggage based on the visual clues!

The train pulls out of the
Toontown
station and continues across a bridge; this area used to be the northern portion of the
berm
enclosing
Disneyland
Park
, but the bridge now crosses the entrance to
Mickey’s Toontown
, which opened to Guests in 1993.  (According to
Disneyland
lore,
Toontown
secretly existed for a half-century prior to that as a sort of resort community for the tony ‘
Toon
set.)

Almost immediately the train passes in front of the gloriously eclectic façade of
“it’s a small world”
(largely a
Mary Blair
creation) and behind the giant
“small world”
clock.  Guests with good views to their right can see the
“small world”
queues, topiary gardens, and canals, and, in the distance, the snowy peak of
Disneyland
’s 147-foot tall
Matterhorn Mountain
.  Wave to the
“small world”
Guests, especially the little ones; they’ll wave back as your train steams by!

This is one of the quietest legs of your journey, with the silent wooded greenery of the
berm
on your left, and glimpses of foliage,
Autopia
, and off-limits
backstage
areas to your right.

Before you know it you’ve pulled into the
Tomorrowland
Train Station
, with its weirdly, wonderfully alien-looking spherical lamps.  (In case you haven’t notice it by this point in your journey, the lanterns at each train station, like everything else, are themed to each district.)

This is where you want to exit if you’re interested in visiting any of the
Tomorrowland
attractions, including standouts like
Autopia
,
Buzz Lightyear Astro Blasters
,
Space Mountain
, and
Star Tours
.

Even though this little station is tucked away behind
Autopia
and the
Innoventions
building, after the fireworks during peak seasons, when many happily weary
Tomorrowland
Guests are ready to head home or back to the hotel, this station gets
mobbed
.  And because the arriving trains are already crowded with departing Guests from the
New Orleans Square
and
Toontown Train Stations
, it might be a half hour and several successive trains before you can board.

If you’re staying at a
Disneyland Resort Hotel
, a better bet for you might be queuing for the
Monorail
at the nearby
Tomorrowland Monorail Station
, and riding it directly to the
Downtown Disney
stop, where you’ll detrain only a few moments’ walk from any of the three resort hotels.  Of course, during frenzied summer and holiday nights, the
Monorails
get thronged as well, but at least once you board a
Monorail
you head right toward your hotel, instead of having to detrain on
Main Street
and then walk with the crowds the rest of the way.

After everyone’s de
trained and boarded at the
Tomorrowland Train Station
, the train begins its final leg of the journey, which is in many ways its most wondrous.  Even veteran Guests don’t always know about the secret treasures of this final voyage; the attractions aren’t identified on the
Guide to Disneyland Park
maps, so if a Guest has never voyaged by train from
Tomorrowland
to
Main Street
, they have no idea what they’re missing.  Guest’s who’ve made this journey, or who have studied the larger, fold-out map of the park on sale at some park stores, know exactly what hidden gems I mean!

After departing the
Tomorrowland
station, the train enters a tunnel that winds behind
Redd Rocket’s Pizza Port
, the
Magic Eye Theater
, and
Space Mountain
.

The tunnel contains hidden gem number one.  On
the right side of the train, Guests enjoy a breathtaking experience as they view the
Grand Canyon Diorama
inspired by
Disney
’s 1958
Grand Canyon
nature film.  The film won an Academy Award, and
Disneyland
replaced a boring tunnel with this amazing new attraction.  It opened in spring 1958 with plenty of pomp and circumstance and a blessing by a nonagenarian Hopi chief.

At over 300 feet long and 34 feet high, the photo-realistic painting
depicting the
Grand Canyon
at various times of the day and various seasons during the year is enhanced by taxidermy animals.  The creatures are quite lifelike but are not
Audio-Animatronic
and don’t move; if you think you see one moving, it’s your eyes or a shadow playing tricks (or maybe a Cast Member playing a prank!)

In a break from the narration, you hear a recording of the folksy
musical piece
On The Trail
by composer
Ferde Grofé
, a segment of his 1931
Grand Canyon Suite
.  (This was his most famous work; always inspired by nature, he also wrote pieces evocative of Niagara Falls, the Hudson, and the mighty Mississippi.)

As lovely as the diorama is, don’t, please
don’t
, snap flash photographs.  The train is separated from the attraction by panes of glass; photo-flashes obscure the view and momentarily blind fellow Guests.  It’s distracting and irritating, to say the least, which is why
Disneyland
asks Guests to refrain from flash photography.

The same goes for the next attraction,
Primeval World
, which follows immediately upon the heels of the
Grand Canyon
experience.  The
Primeval World Diorama
was crafted by
Disney Imagineers
for the 1964-1965 New York World’s Fair as part of the Ford Pavilion’s
Magic Skyway
.

Introduced to
Disneyland
in 1966,
Primeval World
is a wild conclusion to the train ride, especially if Guests aren’t expecting it.  Dinosaur fans of all ages will be riveted by the
Audio-Animatronic
creatures, some so adorable you’ll want to take them home in your backpack, like the teeny triceratops hatching before our eyes, and some are terrifying, like the brutal T-rex of the conclusion.