The “nine old men,” was Walt Disney’s nickname for the nine animators who helped create some of Disney’s most famous movies, including “Bambi,” “Pinocchio,” and “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.”
In May 2005, the last survivor of this group, 92-year-old Ollie Johnston, was sitting in his wheelchair at the Disneyland Railroad during a ceremony in his honor.
Suddenly, an old locomotive came chugging around the bend – it was the Marie E., a 1901 Porter steam engine that once hauled coal in Puyallup, Wash. Johnston bought the locomotive in the 1960s from a salvage yard and had it restored.
Johnston and Frank Thomas – his best friend and another of the “nine old men” Disney animators – had the narrow-gauge train set up on a 3-foot-wide track at the neighboring vacation homes that they, their wives and families shared in Julian, a historic gold mining town in the mountains an hour east of San Diego.
But by 1993, the train was too much for Johnston to maintain, so he sold it to Sonoma’s John Lasseter.
Lasseter, a computer-animation pioneer who this year was put in creative charge of Disney’s animation studios, had the Marie E. delivered to the Disneyland Railroad on a flat-bed truck as a surprise to Johnston.
“Ollie was completely taken aback that his old engine was there! He was wheeled to the handicapped loading platform … strapped in, hand on the throttle. (Johnston) whistled a very loud blast, pulled the throttle, and took off like a bolt of lightning!” eyewitness Steve DeGaetano told MousePlanet.com, a Web site that covers Disneyland.
“He made two circuits of the railroad, and came into the station with tears in his eyes.”
The next stop for the Marie E. might be Glen Ellen.
Disney animators loved trains
Lasseter and his Santa Rosa attorney met with Sonoma County official Dean Parsons and asked what permits would be required to install a locomotive on the grounds of Lasseter’s new, 20,000-square-foot home under construction on Dunbar Road.
“It was, as I understand, a full-size train,” said Parsons, the Project Review Division Manager for Sonoma County’s Permit and Resource Management Department.
Parsons said it’s the first time that he knows of that a Sonoma County resident has sought to have a locomotive installed at home.
But it wouldn’t be the first time a Disney animator had a steam train set up in his yard.
Walt Disney was so enamored of trains that he had a one- eighth-size steam locomotive installed on a half-mile track in his backyard in the Holmby Hills section of Los Angeles.
Ward Kimball, another of the “nine old men,” owned a narrow-gauge steam locomotive and coach car that he ran at “Grizzly Flats Railroad,” a 3-acre track in an orange grove at his San Gabriel home. He gave train rides to friends and family. Kimball’s obsession with trains dated back to his childhood; his first recognizable drawing as a child was of a steam locomotive.
Following in their tracks?
But the Marie E. looked shiny, new and ready to roll in a photo on the Web site of Hillcrest Shops, a business in Reedley, near Fresno, which specializes in steam railroad equipment and fabrication. Hillcrest Shops does everything from manufacturing miniature train engines to laying train track. It restored the Marie E. to steam for a “private estate,” its Web site said.
The Marie E. was the star attraction in Oct., 2005 at the Grand Scale Railroading Convention, a gathering of hobbyists who own steam locomotives that was held at the Hillcrest Christmas Tree Farm, which is also home to the Hillcrest and Wahotke Railroad and the Hillcrest Shops.
“The highlight of the convention… was a special appearance by Lasseter himself at a presentation on the history, restoration, and travels of the (Marie E.) held over dinner by Hillcrest Shops owner Sean Baustista,” said an article that Ed Kelley wrote for the Web site discoverlivesteam.com.
Lasseter’s affection for trains also shows up inside his sprawling Glen Ellen home, which will include a model-train library, according to the house plans.
No permit required
As far as permits are concerned, none would be required for Lasseter’s locomotive, aside from a grading permit to lay the track, Parsons said.
“For a private use, it’s really not covered by zoning,” Parsons said.
Any noise the train made would be regulated by county ordinance, he said.
“Our general plan would regulate that. Anything past 10 p.m. would be a disturbance.”
A couple who lives near Lasseter’s new home told the Sun that Lasseter had the right to do what he wanted on his private property.
The wife said of Lasseter, “He’s a big kid, isn’t he?” and wondered hopefully if Lasseter would offer train rides to neighbors.
