Where Ya Headed?

Storytelling details appear throughout the Main Street Station of the Walt Disney World Railroad, but none is as rich with "Hidden Disney" as this arrival/departure board found on the lower level. Just one glance, and any Disney buff can see there are references here to Disney history. Take a closer look, and you'll find it's absolutely full of them.

In the first line, Kimball Canyon is a tribute to famed Disney animator Ward Kimball. Aside from his work creating memorable characters like Jiminy Cricket, Ward was also an avid train buff. Before Walt had his Carolwood Pacific Railroad in the backyard, Ward had a backyard setup (in a larger scale than Walt's) he called the Grizzly Flats Railroad. In fact, it was Ward Kimball who accompanied Walt Disney to the Chicago Railroad Fair of 1948, a trip that served to inspire many of the elements of the original Disneyland.

The next line refers to the 1966 Disney feature Follow Me, Boys!, which starred Fred MacMurray as Lem Siddons, a saxophonist who settles down in the small Illinois town of Hickory and ends up mentoring several generations of boys as the local scoutmaster. Follow Me, Boys! also has the distinction of being Kurt Russell's first film for the Studio.

A few years later, Kurt Russell would star in Disney's The Computer Wore Tennis Shoes. He played Dexter Riley, a student at Medfield College who accidentally gets all the knowledge from the school's computer lodged in his brain. Medfield also appeared in another Fred MacMurray movie, The Absent-Minded Professor. In that film, Medfield's rival school is Rutland (not Rutledge; I suppose even Imagineers make mistakes on occasion).

Next up is a clear reference to Pollyanna, Hayley Mills' first film for Disney and one set in the small New England town of Harrington. Jane Wyman plays Pollyanna's Aunt Polly Harrington, while Adolphe Menjou portrays Mr. Pendergast, a local hermit whose life is positively impacted by Pollyanna's cheerfulness. The optimism of Pollyanna even comes through in the fact that both of these trains are proudly marked as running "On Time."

Finally, the last line on the board is a nod to the 1967 film The Adventures of Bullwhip Griffin, a story which begins in Victorian era Boston then moves out to California and the Gold Rush. It's appropriate, considering the trains of the Walt Disney World Railroad leave Victorian Main Street and head west for Frontierland and the Gold Rush setting of Big Thunder Mountain. More so, just past the Frontierland station is the flooded mining town scene on Big Thunder Mountain Railroad, likely the reason behind the "Flood Delay" noted on the board.