Casey Jr. Circus Train
| Casey Jr. Circus Train | |
|---|---|
| Park | Disneyland Park |
| Land / area | Fantasyland |
| Type | Miniature railroad |
| Opened | July 31, 1955 |
| Designer | WED Enterprises
|
| Status | Operating |
Casey Jr. Circus Train is a miniature railroad attraction in Fantasyland at Disneyland Park in the Disneyland Resort, California. It is based on Casey Jr., the anthropomorphic locomotive of the 1941 animated film Dumbo, and it carries passengers in circus-themed cars over and around the miniature landscapes of Storybook Land, sharing its terrain with the Storybook Land Canal Boats. The ride opened on July 31, 1955, two weeks after Disneyland itself.
History
Casey Jr. was planned as an opening-day attraction, and indeed ran on July 17, 1955 — but only briefly. The ride had been conceived with a degree of thrill in mind: early plans for the area included a much more ambitious coaster-like layout, and the train as built climbed grades its small power unit struggled with. It closed the day after opening for safety testing and rework. The track was regraded to gentler slopes, and the attraction reopened on July 31, 1955, in the tamer form it has kept ever since.
The railroad was built by Arrow Development, the Northern California firm that manufactured several of Disneyland's earliest rides, on a 2-foot (610 mm) narrow gauge. Two trains were built, No. 7 and No. 9. A version of the attraction later opened at Disneyland Paris in 1994, there engineered as a small powered roller coaster by Vekoma rather than a true railroad.
Trains and route
Each train is headed by a smiling locomotive modelled closely on the film's Casey Jr., complete with the character's face on the boiler front. The visible locomotive, however, does not provide the power: the second vehicle, a calliope car, conceals the internal combustion engine that actually drives the train. Behind it ride an open pink sleigh-style chair car, a barred cage car lettered for monkeys and wild animals, a second open chair car painted blue, and a red caboose. The sleigh cars have their own history — they were adapted from bench seats taken from the Toronto menagerie carousel that Walt Disney converted into the King Arthur Carrousel, stripped of its non-horse figures for Disneyland.
The circuit winds through the Storybook Land area of Fantasyland, crossing bridges over the canal, passing through a short tunnel and climbing the one significant grade on the line, from which the locomotive's "I think I can" character is playfully suggested by the narration and music. From the elevated track, passengers look down on the same miniature villages — Geppetto's village, the Three Little Pigs' houses, Cinderella's village and others — that the canal boats pass at water level, giving the two attractions complementary views of a single miniature world.