Designer Times
Page 2 of 2
One day he tells me what a train wreck is like.....not a quick crash like automobiles, but a minutes-long pile up. Example; to tell me about the low coefficient of friction on frosty chilled rail, he describes the following: A long train loses traction on a steep downgrade near his home in hilly Pennsylvania. He goes to the bottom crossing, sits down, and enjoys several minutes of car after car slamming into a giant pile. He had my hair standing on end as I was howling with laughter.
Dick Bagley was just as nuts. In a time just before Disneyland was to open, Dick takes me out to Bob Day’s home near the Belair Hills to play train for the afternoon. Day was a principal in the Superior Oil Company and had a 36 inch gauge railroad in his front yard. Dick looked a bit weird since he was flecked with soot, glasses oil streaked, and his striped coveralls were burnt.....Said Bob’s locomotive backfired on him earlier.
Several “steam freaks” were on Bob’s steam locomotive. I was invited into the cab where I was startled to find that steam locomotives “walk” along a track rather than just roll. These guys would make big deal out of driving out to one end of the railroad, then reverse back to the barn. Back and forth all afternoon. Steam, smoke, whistle blowing, etc. Then shut the hot roaring thing down , get in the caboose and pass a big whisky bottle all around. Steam Freaks!
Back at Disneyland, the first locomotive was ready to steam up. Walt opened the throttle a bit but nothing moved. A bit more and the new locomotive almost silently glided forward. “No, no, no! Go fix it”. Ed told me that locomotives have machining clearance tolerances expressed as “either tight or loose 1/64th of an inch”. Seems the Studio Machine Shop did a fine job and revised some tolerances to thousandths of an inch. After all, the shop did build precise movie cameras.
Ed got a big laugh out of the effort to disassemble the tight parts and open them up. A few days later the locomotive clunked and clanked out of the barn just like a proper locomotive should, using just a tiny bit of throttle. Naturally, Earl Vilmer and all the steam freaks in attendance smiled and nodded in their conservative silence. To this day I cherish the knowledge I learned from those wonderful wizards whose world was so far from mine.
Next month: Parking Lot Trains - Ice Cream Truck - and an Autopia Bus?
-- Bob Gurr
Bob Gurr began working with Disney in 1954. He retired in 1981 but occassionally consults for the Company. Since Disney he's worked on the sinking ship at Las Vegas' Treasure Island, Universal Studios' King Kong, Godzilla for the film by the same name and much more. Among his proudest accomplishments he lists "making Walt tickled pink that some of the things he wanted to build actually worked. You could tell how proud he was when he would show off things to his friends and the press. Lincoln and the Monorail were two big ones for him."
Designer Times is normally posted the second Wednesday of each month.
The opinions expressed by Bob Gurr, and all of our columnists, do not necessarily represent the feelings of LaughingPlace.com or any of its employees or advertisers. All speculation and rumors about the future of Disneyland and the Walt Disney Company are just that - speculation and rumors - and should be treated as such.
-- Posted November 8, 2000
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