Walt Disney's Old Time Railroad

Walt was obviously passionate about trains. So much so that in the early 1950s, when he was riding the wave of the global hit that was Mickey Mouse, receiving all kinds of awards for his innovative movie making, and just beginning his work on an all new kind of theme park, he was still taking the time to offer for sale to fellow model steam train enthusiasts a catalog of duplicate drawings and parts for his Lilly Belle, the locomotive he ran on his backyard railroad, the Carolwood Pacific. And the cost for the catalog? $0.35 cents!

Here's a photo of one of his ads for the catalog, as it appeared in a 1954 edition of Miniature Locomotive magazine. Next to it is an article by Dick Bagley, a Disney Imagineer, about a new theme park Walt was opening "in midsummer 1955."