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Take a trip from the "magic" to the "reality"of Disney's
Animal Kingdom. On your way to Rafiki's Planet Watch look out for
the night-time enclosures of the safari animals.
For most of Disney's Animal Kingdom guests, Wildlife
Express to Rafiki's Planet Watch is a novel way to travel by rail
behind the scenes. It runs from the African village of Harambe past
state-of-the-art animal care facilities to Rafiki's Planet Watch,
an interactive, fun-filled center of activity focusing on animals
worldwide.
But for railroad buffs, the puffing steam engines
and their open-air carriages provide a nostalgic adventure extending
the legends of British railroading in the mountains and jungles
of far-off colonies.
Engines like these were first produced by British
boiler works 150 years ago. For nearly 100 years they were shipped
to places like South Africa, Rhodesia or India carrying European
explorers and the native population to the animal lands, mines and
agricultural areas of the two continents.
The model for the new Disney engines, discovered in
the archives of the Indian Peninsula Railroad, features an unusual
Aspinwall side-tank 2-4-2 design first built in 1898 in England's
Horwich Locomotive Works. Its passenger carriages are partly enclosed
by waist-high, wood-louvered shutters with carpet bags, boxes, crates
and wicker luggage stacked high on its weathered rooftops -- definitely
an "Out of India" theme.
The Express travels a 1.2-mile circle-tour route built
in narrow-gauge (3.3-foot rail width) to fit the scale of its Disney's
Animal Kingdom surroundings. The smaller scale was used in many
remote areas where narrow-gauge was easier to build along canyon
walls and around horseshoe bends.
Three engines and two sets of cars were built in 1997
only a few miles from William Shakespeare's cottage in Stratford-on-Avon
by the model-railroad firm of Severn Lamb, Ltd., at Alchester, England.
The company makes trains, large and small, for parks throughout
the United Kingdom and Europe, including one for Disneyland Paris.
Each five-car train seats 250 passengers on contoured benches facing
sideways.
The stubby-looking locomotives -- engine and tender
all in one -- look very different from the Magic Kingdom American
style engines with their bells and low-moaning B&O whistles. Wildlife
Express whistles sound like the scream of a wounded piccolo. You'll
recognize them right away from a dozen British mystery movies.
The classic depot is patterned after stucco structures
with archways surrounding an open-air waiting area built by the
British in East Africa during the early 1900s and complete with
colorful travel posters on the walls and a corrugated-metal water
tank nearby. Next to formal, wrought-iron railings is a "local addition"
made of thatch-and-pole construction.
The train makes its way down a shallow valley between
Africa and Asia for a behind-the-scenes look at ultra-modern animal
care facilities which provide nighttime shelters for lions, elephants,
warthogs and antelope herds. All of these animals and many more
spend their days in the forests and grasslands of Africa along the
route of the Kilimanjaro Safaris.
At Rafiki's Planet Watch, guests enjoy up-close encounters
with small animals, interactive video linking animal researchers
and information sources around the world, and a complete veterinary
hospital with medical procedures in progress. Television screens
provide intimate views of animals during feeding, health care and
other daily activities within backstage animal care facilities and
at locations in the Africa and Asia animal lands.
Supervising design and construction of the trains
for Walt Disney Imagineering were Joel Fritsche, technical director
of mechanical engineering, and veteran Disney train-maker Bob Harpur,
who came out of retirement to help with the project.
Harpur ran a model train factory before joining Disney
in 1966 to help locate and rebuild antique trains from Mexico for
the Magic Kingdom and Disney's Fort Wilderness Resort and Campground
in Florida.
The Wildlife Express job involved overseeing tracklayers
on site, traveling to England to check on construction of three
engines and 10 carriages, and directing final theming and "weathering"
by Disney experts at the Walt Disney World site.
Although some of the 19th century trains may be still
operating with makeshift repairs and unreliable schedules in isolated
areas of the world, the last of the vintage steam trains in England
retired nearly 50 years ago, relegated to places like the National
Railway Museum in Yorkshire. None will ever again carry as many
passengers as the Wildlife Express will carry at Disney's Animal
Kingdom.
Type - train ride
When to go - go anytime
Duration - 5 minutes
Restrictions
Guests may remain in wheelchairs or ECVs to experience the attraction.
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