Have you seen the new commercial for Walt Disney World? It’s very fitting considering there would have been no Disneyland had it not been for Walt buying himself a present of a Lionel train set!
Very cool, but it should have been an American Flyer!
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I have! And there’s no doubt in my mind that 4-4-0’s a Lionel General, or a General’s the inspiration for it!
The power of advertising.
In a time long ago, Santa wore dark green
Then he wore a red outfit.
I see he wears light green in this commercial.
He’s Irish
Why is the tender sagging by the stern?
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How can you tell ? I don’t see it.
Look at the shot right at the beginning, aroun 0:02 where the train is going away. See how the tender is tilted backward…
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A glitch in the CGI apparently.
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Couldn’t have been. All known evidence supports it being a Lionel set from 1947. Mainly Walt’s mentioning of it being a “freight set with smoke and whistle”. I quoted the letter as transcribed in Life Magazine in this CTT thread:
Still haven’t seen any leads as to what set ( or sets ) it may have been although I’ve often suspected the Electronics Set.
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He certainly could have afforded it with ease, though there were quite a few outfits in '47 that offered a steam loco with smoke and whistle, and a freight consist.
Catalog outfits 1435ws, 1439ws, 1437ws, 1441ws, 1443ws, 2121ws, 2123ws, 2125ws, 2127ws, 2129ws, 2131ws, and then of course the electronic set 4109ws all featured a smoking steam loco with whistle and a train of freight cars.
The mention of accessories is interesting, as none of the listed outfits came with all the accessories described, or indeed, any of them. It seems likely they would have to have been bought separately, at the same time as the main train outfit.
Or could it have been a pre-built store display layout? Who can say.
-El
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No, I meant that Disney should have shown an American Flyer train. An obvious bias on my part. 
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I doubt Lionel will ever rerelease the Franklin set and nothing else in Flyer’s production history (or Lionel’s for that matter) would resemble the 2 2-6-0s and one 4-6-0 in the WDW RR roundhouse. Of the 4 locomotives on the property only one, the Roy O Disney, a 1916 Baldwin, is a 4-4-0.
If it is CGI probably the people doing it would not know anything about trains.
I was just looking for equal time for American Flyer. 
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Except for the Lionel products with a Disney theme. Which makes it easy to see why the general was chosen. I imagine it was laser scanned to create a 3D digital model for the ad. The more interesting piece in my view is what the General is pulling. I suspect they used Polar Express coaches since there’s nothing in the Lionel line that resemble the open air excursion cars of the WDW RR.
Also, I’m not entirely sold on O Gauge models being used as the prototypes. Lionel has had battery operated G Gauge versions of the General produced with a Disney theme and of course there are thousands of G Gauge Polar Express sets out there. Using the inexpensive toys makes a lot of sense from the perspective of cost versus profit considering how expensive the O Gauge sets are.
PS: if they did use the G Gauge toys they would be 2-rail, which should make Rich happier 
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Oh yes, nothing would please me more. 
Rich
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I imagine the answer about the train set is in the “Walt Disney’s Trains” book?
p.s. Yes, before the Coca-Cola ads of the 1930s, Santa Claus was usually (but not always) portrayed wearing green rather than red, so would fit for the era of the 4-4-0.
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There are a lot of good leads.
I think Ward or one of Walt’s grandkids got them.
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How about some Disney train tours courtesy of Lisa K?
(Lisa’s dad owns “The Train Loft” train shop in Winston-Salem NC.)
And a little Ward Kimball thrown in!
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