"Herbie, I just want it to look like nothing else in the world. And it should be surrounded by a train." ~Walt Disney's first description of Disneyland to Herb Ryman.
Perhaps no other attraction on this list is an actual requirement for its home park. There are -- obviously -- attractions that are going to finish higher. There are attractions with more thrills, and better animatronics, and better music. In even the case of the very best of those attractions, it is possible to picture -- even painfully -- the park without them.
A Disneyland-style park, though -- like the Magic Kingdom -- requires that train. Because Walt said so.
And he was right.
Walt Disney's love of trains has been well documented. The son of a railroad mechanic, he was obsessed with transportation his entire life, both in nostalgia for the past and improving the future.
That love meant the main detail of the infancy of his theme park was just to put a train around it, and that became one of the most iconic aspects of the very idea of theme parks ever since. Six Flags Over Texas had a train, because it was trying to be Disneyland. Roller Coaster Tycoon has the railroad, so you can make your park right. Busch Gardens -- both Tampa and Williamsburg -- have railroads because of Disneyland.
And the Magic Kingdom had to have a railroad.
When you think about it, those aren't necessarily natural fits. Why does a theme park need a train? What does a train have to do with a theme park? Nothing, to be honest. But because of Disneyland's train wrapping around its perimeter, it's become an iconic fit for parks around the world, and a required fit for those with a castle in the middle.
It works great, though. One of Walt's greatest gifts -- accidental or otherwise -- was having a great understanding of what makes an audience happy, whether they know it or not. Sometimes, I'm pretty sure, he got there just by doing what made him happy, and we all just end up liking the same stuff. In his back yard, Walt built the Carrollwood Pacific Railroad, a miniature train he'd recklessly drive around the yard to impress friends and family; a rather bizarre social item, but the kinds that comes from a man who thinks up Disneyland, and frankly we need more bizarre social items.
That obsession gives the Magic Kingdom the very first attraction you see upon entering the front gates. We may not have Walt's love of it, but there's just something iconic and mesmerizing about that engine rolling into the station, with the wheels clacking, the bell clanging, and steam hissing all around. It's nostalgia, authenticity, and power all wrapped in one package, welcoming you to something inspired by and yet not at all a part of the real world.
Your attention please: The Walt Disney World Railroad, now boarding for a scenic trip around the Magic Kingdom, with stops in Adventureland, Fantasyland, and Main Street U.S.A. All abooooooooard!
If it's hard to articulate what makes the train itself so iconic and magical, it is not hard to articulate what makes the ride itself valuable to the park: transportation rides are great. The Skyway and Discovery River Boats nearly made this list, because getting theme park guests from point A to point B without them using their feet is, frankly, a tremendously great way of making your park just a little more interesting. Beyond allowing you to sit and relax, it just makes the journey more visually appealing, with more variety. The sensation of movement is inherently fun, and that sensation coupled with accomplishing a goal -- "let's go over there" -- is honestly pretty neat.
The Railroad remains a vestige of that concept, allowing you to get from Main Street to Fantasyland with very few footsteps if you really want. Along the way, you'll mostly just see lush trees -- nothing wrong with that -- and a few small show scenes set up, but it makes you feel like you're traveling through some barely-charted wilderness as the engine chugs along.
Each of its stations is an intrinsic part of its location. The beautifully remodeled red brick Fantasyland station fits the aesthetic of its surrounding circus -- clearly explaining the arrival of the circus itself -- and with the name "Carrollwood Station" is a clear nod to Walt's little train. Frontierland's station tucks behind the mountain range, with a preview of Splash Mountain on its approach. Most importantly of all, though, is the Main Street station, the iconic entry way to the park. Not only a beautiful building in its own right, it serves as a curtain to delay the reveal of the "show" coming up on Main Street. You know the castle is inside, but we're going to build your anticipation just a little bit more before we let you see it.
It ties the park together, connecting one spot to the next, and that familiar whistle can be heard no matter where you are, almost like the calling card sound of the Magic Kingdom. That sounds of the train across the park just are the Magic Kingdom. It's track is the DNA of the park, and though it may be borrowed from Anaheim in 1955 as a concept, the Magic Kingdom cannot exist without it, and thus neither can this list.
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