89 Days: Disney Steam Train Memories

Not the Lilly Belle, but her brother locomotive

One of the four steam locomotives used at the Magic Kingdom is leaving the Stasburg Railroad Museum after a long refurb and making its way back to Florida. This is the Lily Belle, the locomotive that has been used to bring Mickey and friends to the park entrance for rope drop.

That moment when the steam train pulls into the station above you and a pile of Disney characters emerge to sing and dance the park open for the day was my son's very first Disney experience and the look on his face is something I will never forget. John was going on three years old at the time and was completely enthralled by the spectacle. I'm pretty sure we've not seen the Magic Kingdom rope drop since that day. Hmmmmmm.......

We enjoy the steam train ride around the park, usually taking at lest one full round trip each visit just for the ride. It's also a fun way to skip from land to land, and nice way to get off your feet. You also end up interacting with other guests more than we are wont to do usually. Once, while on a trip on the lovely Miss Lisa's birthday, she was wearing her tiara. Because, well, it's Disney and her birthday, so why not? Another woman on the train admired it and immediately asked her husband why SHE didn't have one, and asked Lisa where she got it. Lisa had bought it a few weeks before at a renaissance festival and not in the park, so hubby was off the hook, at least briefly.

We like the front and back of the trains

We also saw one of the strangest guest behaviors on the train. Somewhere between Frontierland and the Toon Town  station (I think it was Mickey's Toontown Fair at the time), a man apparently dropped his cell phone from the train. We heard a loud ruckus from the back of train and turned to see that the man had jumped off, retrieved his phone, and was running to catch up and jump back on. This did not please the conductor dude one bit. The train stopped, the man was collected, and he was met by security at the next station. We sort of hung around to rubber neck and see how the situation was resolved. Looked to us like the guy's young, huge-eyed daughter in a princess dress saved him from being ejected from the park. That entire trip featured some weird, bad guest behavior. Even saw a fight almost break out waiting for the evening parade. Nutso stuff.

These guys would rather you not jump off mid-trip :-)