Progress City, U.S.A.

Seriously, how cool would this be?

Thanks to a tip by the paterfamilias, I was directed yesterday to a website devoted to the Fort Wilderness Railroad. This very cool site had somehow escaped my notice until now, and it has lots of fantastic images and history about this fairly undocumented attraction. The crown jewel of the site, however, is an amazing video from a ride on the railroad. I’ve never ever seen video of this attraction before – it closed in 1979, after all! – and this is an amazing and rare treat.

The Fort Wilderness Railroad, which operated from 1974 until 1979, provided internal transportation service for Walt Disney World’s Fort Wilderness campground. Its itinerary was similar to today’s bus service; it included stops at the Outpost and Settlement Depots and passed by the Meadow Trading Post. It also provided service to River Country upon that attraction’s opening in 1976. The 3 1/2 mile track loop was longer than any of the train routes in Disney parks, and it provided many scenic views for guests aboard the 4/5th scale steam engines.

I’ve always regarded the Fort Wilderness Railroad as a mere historical curiosity; it was gone well before my first trip to Walt Disney World and I’d never even heard of it until Disney fandom exploded on the internet. Looking at the pictures on the tribute site, however, really make me long for a return of this attraction. Fort Wilderness is the true hidden jewel of Walt Disney World, and the railroad would provide a definite touch of themeing that the internal bus routes lack. What’s odd is that much of the depot infrastructure was re-purposed after the railroad was closed, explaining many of the strange features of Fort Wilderness’s bus depots.

After the closing of the railroad, the tracks and rolling stock were allowed to rot in the Florida sun. Thankfully, those lucky folks at the Carolwood Foundation eventually stepped in to save and restore the trains. Faint traces of the railway remain around the campground for those who know where to look.

While it seems unlikely that the Fort Wilderness Railroad will ever return, there was a brief window in time during which it was poised for a revival. During the so-called “Disney Decade” of the 1990s, plans were underway for a new resort between the Wilderness Lodge and Fort Wilderness. Alternately called “Wilderness Junction” or “Buffalo Junction”, the hotel would be similar to Disneyland Paris’s Hotel Cheyenne. It would resemble the street of a western town in the late 19th century, providing a thematic link between the early frontier theme of Fort Wilderness and the early 20th century national park theme of the Wilderness Lodge. The hotel would combine lodging with dining venues, shops and entertainment; it would also allegedly feature a stateside version of Paris’s Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show.

A proposed layout for the Wilderness Lodge hotel; note the train loop to the south linking the hotel with Fort Wilderness

Most important to our tale was that in order to provide day visitors transportation to these new attractions and River Country, a return of the Fort Wilderness Railroad was discussed to link Fort Wilderness, Wilderness Junction and the Wilderness Lodge. Sadly, due to tourism concerns stemming from the first Gulf War and accompanying recession, the 600-room Wilderness Junction was postponed in late 1992. It was re-announced as “Buffalo Junction” in 1993, but never heard from again.

Someday, though, with some creative new leadership, it might be possible to once more hear the sound of live steam in Fort Wilderness and to take the train from the parking lot to the Hoop-Dee-Doo or a revitalized River Country. That would be nifty.

This is our 200th post here at Progress City, and I wanted to do something a little special to mark this milestone of my unexpected commitment. Something from the Bicentennial would be appropriate, I thought, but those seem like they were pretty depressing times so I decided to skip it. Instead we’re going to feature some rarely-seen artwork from Port Disney, the abandoned Disney project that was developed for Long Beach, California, in 1990-91. It’s exciting to be able to post these images, so I hope you enjoy our bicentennial post spectacular!

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The tiki gods have been debating lately whether to pass along the latest rumors from Jim Hill regarding the possibility that Imagineering was dusting off the long-dormant plans for EPCOT’s Russia pavilion. Initially, the royal we decided to let these rumors pass for now, until such time as other sources became available. Then yesterday, Screamscape posted a rebuttal of Hill’s piece containing a tidbit that grabbed my attention enough that I thought it worthy to comment.

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More accurately – “Something is afoot in Florida, what is it?” A warning – this is all complete speculation and hearsay, but it’s fun so get over it.

Two weeks ago the heavy hitters of the theme park industry convened on Orlando for the IAAPA 2007 conference and trade show. Many of Disney’s Imagineering brain trust made the trip, and took the opportunity to tour Disney’s Orlando properties with a fine toothed comb and give some thought to the next wave of new attractions for Walt Disney World. Aside from Toy Story Mania! there are currently no major future attractions announced for the Florida property, and if WDW is to keep up with the multi-billion dollar expansion plans for California and get something ready for the resort’s 40th anniversary in 2011 it’s time to start thinking about these things.

Reports from the last few weeks place Disney CEO Bob Iger in the parks, as well as Imagineering honcho John Lasseter and Imagineers such as Tom Fitzgerald and Joe Rohde. Aside from the requisite wining and dining, these executives were said to be mulling over various proposals that have been made for Walt Disney World’s next wave of expansion. While public announcements are ostensibly a long way off, decisions are being made now for where development funds are going to be allocated and which projects are going to start clawing their way toward the coveted greenlight.

So what is on the way? No one, even the Imagineers on the projects, probably know for sure – but there are a few clues. Respected posters on prominent Disney message boards have reported that a great deal of attention is being paid to the Japan pavilion at EPCOT Center. Imagineers have been sniffing around, and something is said to be in the works. Exactly what is unknown, but it’s said to differ slightly from previous proposals.

Long-time EPCOT obsessives will no doubt know that this pavilion has come painfully close to actually having an attraction several times over the years. Plans from the 1970’s included a travelogue film delivered via a simulated trip on a bullet train; by the time of the park’s opening a show entitled Meet the World was being created for the pavilion. This attraction, something of a Japanese Carousel of Progress, was designed and the ride building was actually built behind the castle gates at the rear of the pavilion, but in 1983 the attraction was diverted to the new Tokyo Disneyland park and the empty ride building has been a warehouse ever since. Later, during Eisner’s “Disney Decade”, the pavilion was supposed to receive a “Mount Fuji” themed roller coaster, but this too went unrealized.

In recent years there’s been a constant rumor that a certain faction at WDI wants to remedy some of the errors of the past and build up World Showcase’s skyline so as to block out certain outside visual intrusions. Mount Fuji would obviously help in this, and indeed it seems to be the centerpiece of most of the new rumors. Hopefully WDI has some elaboration on this concept up its sleeve, as Fuji (along with a proposed Swiss Pavilion and its Matterhorn coaster) was intended as an east-coast Matterhorn substitute, a position which has since been taken by Expedition Everest at Animal Kingdom. Strangely enough, Everest impresario Joe Rohde is said to have a hand in this new Japanese project.

The point of all this is that public announcements are a long way off, but funding decisions aren’t and at least management is thinking about these things. The acknowledgment that World Showcase desperately is in need of something new is much appreciated, even if it is all hearsay. Let’s hope WDI is as up on this as rumor holds, and that further leaks aren’t far away. And maybe we’ll just hear something about Imagination 4.0, while we’re at it…