on the road again, to the walt disney hometown museum

this will be a storyline travelogue of my recent trip to marceline, missouri, site of the walt disney hometown museum, in the former santa fe,atchison & topeka railroad depot. although walt and roy only spent 5 short years there, main street usa is based on walt's recollections of his youth, ages 5-10. it might seem a little rambling, but i'm presenting it in the order of my day in marceline, from about 0830 until about 1430, some nondisney ; stuff will be included, mostly for the benefit of fellow railfans, since marceline is double track mainline, seeing about 70 trains a day.


from trackside in bucklin, mo, a small town about 8 miles northeast of marceline, just happened to be my first trackside stop, since i was too early for the museum, which does not open until 10:00, you can see a long ways down the tracks in rural missouri ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ;


you better pay attention and stop look and listen especially when this is what you have for crossing guard




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amtrack coming through at track speed, which is 79mph, so you need to look both ways


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coming into marceline, more about that unique building front up ahead, zurchers, later on


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welcome to marceline


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the sun was not in my favor for this shot, so you'll have to live with the fact that i forgot to revisit this later in the day


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marceline at one time was a good size yard, and a crew change point, with coaling tower and water tank
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caboose in the town square/park, other side from the engine


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now let's get into the main reason for being in marceline


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the outside has been made very attractive


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i asked about the no photography, i was told by the volunteers that open and staff the museum that i could photograph some things, but because they are a nonprofit, and they are trying to really capitalize on the tourist potential for the benefit of marceline itself that they don't want everything ending up on flicker or other sites, and people to then say, well i've seen everything in photos, no need to go there, since i professed to worship in the first church of walt, they relented and let me take quite a few photos inside


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some of the bricks from the donor wall, there are several well known disney associates on there, as well as several of walt's grandchildren and other family


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walt was connected to trains his whole life, from traveling on them, having an uncle who was an atsf&t engineer, to his frequent travels on trains as an adult, to his own garden railroad, the carolwood pacific


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remember these? the 75 mickey and minnie statues around the magic kingdom one year, engineer mickey was donated to the museum


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some marceline depot memorabilia


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nice collection of train crew lamps


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the great locomotive chase, one of 2 disney movies that were world premiered in marceline


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walt at home in his backyard, with his railroad and barn


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continuing with the railroad stuff


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a piece of the track from the carolwood pacific


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check out the 2 mickey dolls


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there is a room on the second floor, with a collection of disneyland in miniature, made by a man from california who had mobility issues so turned his abilities into craft work, after he finished this he donated it to the museum as he felt that with his various medical issues he would not be around very long, he was able to attend the dedication but passed within a year


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more of the miniatures


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took these on the way out, a car from the original midget autopia, removed from disney land and installed by disney engineers for the children of marceline to use, now the runnng gear and cars have worn out and are in storage awaiting funding and a return to glory, let's hope they make it


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so now we move out of the museum, and over to the walt disney elementary school, where there are several murals on display, done by disney artists


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walt was always a big supporter of education, this is probably why


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Gary, I am loving this! ; Thanks for "taking me along" on your trip!


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Fun trip. Did you drive into Marceline?

 

Thanks for sharing.

 

yes i did have my wheels for marceline, a rented tin can from lambert airport, rented just for the marceline portion of the trip, i got around st louis proper by using metrolink


walt's dreaming tree and barn, these were places walt returned to whenever he was in marceline as an adult, in fact he would always make time for a couple of hours by himself under the dreaming tree.it's only about a mile away from downtown marceline


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the dreaming tree today


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on to the barn


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after a lunch break at sonic, had to learn some mew language to get a chilidog, something to do with a coney?
one of only 3 remaining concrete coaling towers


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the disney family has been generous over the years to marceline, this is the pool/park paid for by them


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uptown theater, site of 2 disney film world premiers


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the other film premier, 18,000 disney fans showed up for this occasion


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there is a bed and breakfast upstairs


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Great series, Gary! ; Thanks for sharing the experience with us.

 

still on main street in marceline


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check out the lamp post ears


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this is the zurchers building that was the template for casey's corner, there was a fire a few years ago that destroyed an adition, when they removed the debris, they found the old coke sign that would have been there in walt's day


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so we've finished our time in marceline, but the trip wasn't over, so at the risk of thread boredom, i'll add some more snaps from the road. i ramrodded back to st louis early enough to bunk in kirkwood for the night, that gave me all friday and a rental to do a little suburban exploration, some train watching in kirkwood and a side trip to the st louis county transport museum, first up, a george barris creation, anyone remember this one?


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so i am finally getting around to adding to this thread, i am so far behind in posting i need a day laborer just to catch up.
here we have an indy car on display, sorry to the fans out there, i did not take notes, and can't remember what team it is, but i remember it was a local st louis based team.