Steam Engine Enthusiast Inspired Walt Disney

Press, Volume XCVIII, Issue 28870, 15 April 1959, Page 18

Steam Engine Enthusiast Inspired Walt Disney

•The Press’ Special Senncs

AUCKLAND, April 14. A man so fascinated with styim locomotives that he infected the film-maker, Walt Disney, with his enthusiasm, has arrived in Auckland. He plans to travel by train to Invercargill. “The airlines won’t see much of me,” said Mr G. M. Best, of Beverly Hills, California. “I’m just dying to ride your 3ft 6in gauge railway cars.” When Walt Disney caught “the bug” he put in a scale model railway track around his house, said Mr Best, who is an electrical engineer in the sound department of Walt Disney Productions, Inc. The steam engine draws guests around the track in model carriages. “Mrs Disney said she would not have trains puffing past her living room when she was entertaining friends,” he said. “So Walt dug a tunnel under the front lawn and the train goes through that.” Mr Best is particularly proud of the vintage engine he unearthed in a Louisiana sugar plantation. Painted and polished, it now draws thousands daily through the Disneyland playground. “We have just celebrated our three millionth passenger,” he said, “and the train has only been running three years.” * ‘Vice-president’ ’ Mr Best produced two cards signed by Walt Disney. One was a free pass to Disneyland and the

other certified that he was an “honorary vice-president” of the Disneyland Railway Company. Another card, his official one. shows him to be resident vicepresident of the Pacific Coast district of the Railway and Locomotive Historical Society. For the last 25 or 30 years Mr Best has corresponded with Mr W. W. Stewart, an enthusiast in New Zealand. “I know all about your trains here,” he said. “You'Ve got an interesting collection. “That 3ft 6in is a pretty narrow gauge, and I guess you’ve built your carriages about as wide Si possible for that gauge. It ll certainly going to be interesting trying out one of those sleeper!. Railways Tie “You see this tie,” he said. Hie neat design incorporated a vintage engine crossing a viaduct, two sets of tracks and two warning lights. “These people put out some ties with diesel engines on them, so I wrote to them suggesting some steam engines, not necessarily modern. Now they have three or four like this.” Mr and Mrs Best plan to spend about 18 days in New ZealandThey will travel by train to Invercargill, back across the Southern Alps to Westport and GreymoutK and return to Christchurch. Then they will fly to Austral!* —Mr Best is sorry they cannot run railway lines across the Tssman Sea—and have a look at some trains and railway junctions there before coming back to New Zealand to catch the Monterey home.