Did You Know Walt Disney Built a Rideable Railroad in His Backyard?

Walt Disney is usually remembered through enormous things: animated films, beloved characters, a studio, and theme parks visited by millions of people. But one of the most revealing objects connected with his life was much smaller. In 1950, Disney built a functioning 1/8-scale steam railroad in the backyard of his home in Holmby Hills, California.

He named it the Carolwood Pacific Railroad, after Carolwood Drive. The line was not a toy that sat untouched on a shelf. Family, friends, and visitors could ride it. Disney built and maintained parts of it, operated its equipment, and spent time in a small barn beside the track. The surviving records show a famous creator absorbed in a practical, highly personal hobby—with rails, switches, tools, schedules, and a locomotive named for his wife.

The story is a useful reminder for family storytellers, too. A public biography tends to preserve achievements. A personal archive can preserve the workshop, the handmade object, the people who were invited in, and the ordinary place where an idea took shape.

The railroad began with an early fascination

The Walt Disney Family Museum traces Disney’s interest in railroads to childhood. His father, Elias, worked at different trades and had stories connected with laying tracks and building railways for the Union Pacific Railroad. His uncle Michael Martin was an engineer for the Santa Fe Railroad and would wave to Walt and his brothers as trains passed their Missouri hometown.

Those family connections give the later backyard project a history without requiring us to turn it into destiny. Disney had early experiences around railway work, kept returning to trains as an adult, and eventually made a place where the interest could become physical.

From an office model to a real backyard ride

Before the Carolwood Pacific, Disney had a tabletop model train layout in his office suite. The Walt Disney Family Museum says he ran it when he had a spare moment and showed it to visitors, including animators who were also train enthusiasts.

That detail makes the later railroad easier to picture. The backyard line did not appear as a single grand gesture. It grew from a hobby that had already found a place in his working life. A model could be adjusted by hand, discussed with colleagues, and watched between other tasks. The backyard version gave the same interest more room, more machinery, and more people to carry along.

After visiting the Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn, Michigan, Disney was impressed by an attraction in which a locomotive carried visitors around the grounds. The museum says that, after returning home, he constructed his own 1/8-scale steam engine, the Lilly Belle, named in honour of his wife Lillian. The train ran around a track that looped through the property.

It is tempting to summarize this as “Disney built a miniature Disneyland first.” The documented facts are already enough: he had a long interest in railroads, built a working engine and track, and created a space where guests could experience the hobby. The surviving railroad does not need a dramatic origin myth to be memorable.

What the track actually contained

The Carolwood Society records unusually concrete details about the line. The first run took place on May 7, 1950. The track measured 2,615 feet and included a 46-foot trestle and a 90-foot tunnel beneath his wife’s flower bed.

Those numbers do more than make the story sound impressive. They help us understand the scale of the undertaking. This was not a circle of track on a patio. It was a route with elevated construction, a tunnel, switches, and a landscape that had to accommodate the railway. The garden was not merely a backdrop; it became part of the design.

Disney also had a barn built beside the line. According to the Carolwood Society, he used it to monitor and remotely control the switches. It served as a workshop and as a place where Disney and his friends could relax. The Walt Disney Family Museum likewise describes the miniature railroad as a functioning installation at his home, while its collection account notes that Disney fabricated some of the cars and hardware himself and maintained the engine.

That combination—engineering, maintenance, hospitality, and improvisation—is one reason the story feels more personal than a list of Disney milestones. The barn was not only a display space. It was a working room, a social room, and a place where a project could remain unfinished long enough to invite new ideas.

A family object can hold several kinds of truth

The railroad’s name, Lilly Belle, preserves one relationship directly: Disney named the locomotive for Lillian. The track also preserves a family setting. It ran around the home, crossed a garden, and offered rides to people who were close enough to be invited.

But the archive does not tell us everything about every ride. We should be careful not to invent which family member preferred which seat, what conversation took place on a particular afternoon, or how a child felt about the tunnel unless a source records it. A photograph may show who was present; a letter may explain why someone visited; a later recollection may add atmosphere. Each source has a different kind of authority.

That distinction is practical for family memory keeping. A miniature train, a workbench, a garden feature, or a hand-built object may survive while the story around it fades. When you preserve it, record the layers separately:

• What can be confirmed from the object or document?
• Who made, used, repaired, or named it?
• What does someone remember about it?
• Which part is a later family interpretation?
• What remains unknown?

The result will be less polished than a legend, but more useful to a future reader. It will show not only that an object existed, but how people understood it and where the uncertainty begins.

For a related practical exercise, MemoryShare’s guide to writing a note for a future reader suggests adding the context that a photograph or official record cannot carry by itself: routines, roles, nicknames, missing people, and why an ordinary object mattered. The Carolwood railroad is a good example of that principle. “Walt Disney owned a train” is a fact. “He built a track around his home, named the engine for Lillian, kept a workshop beside it, and welcomed people into the project” is a life story with texture.

The hobby continued into Disney’s public work

Disney’s private railroad and his professional interest in trains later met at Disneyland. The Walt Disney Family Museum says the Carolwood inspired a larger project and that Disney became the official chief engineer of the Santa Fe & Disneyland Railroad. It also records that he kept an engineer’s outfit in his apartment above the Main Street firehouse so he could change quickly and take a turn operating the train.

The barn survived after the Holmby Hills property was sold. The Carolwood Society says Disney’s daughter Diane Disney Miller helped save it, and that the structure was eventually moved to Griffith Park in Los Angeles, where it remains associated with the Los Angeles Live Steamers Museum. The barn’s survival adds another family chapter: preserving the place where someone worked can preserve a different kind of memory from preserving the finished public achievement.

What is the small object in your family story?

Most families do not have a 2,615-foot railway. They may have a repaired radio, a shed full of labelled tins, a sewing machine, a fishing rod, a recipe box, or a half-finished model. Such objects can look ordinary after the person who used them is gone. Their meaning often depends on details no catalogue can supply.

Choose one object and ask five questions:

1. Who first brought it into the family?
2. What did the owner do with it that a photograph would not show?
3. Who else was invited into that activity?
4. Which part of the story is documented, and which part is remembered?
5. What should a future reader know before deciding that the object was “just a hobby”?

Walt Disney’s backyard railroad is memorable because the records preserve its physical scale and because the project still feels inhabited. There are rails, a locomotive, a tunnel, a workshop, a family name, and a person making time for something he loved. Your family’s object may be quieter, but it can carry the same kind of evidence: a person’s habits, relationships, patience, humour, and way of paying attention.

Your story matters to us. What object in your family home still contains a life that no official biography could explain?

Sources and further reading

• The Walt Disney Family Museum, “All Aboard: A Celebration of Walt’s Trains”
• The Walt Disney Family Museum, “Walt Disney Treasures: Walt’s Train Uniform”
• The Carolwood Society, “Walt’s Barn”