“Fred Gurley” No. 3

Design and Construction

Fred Gurley No. 3 was built by the Baldwin Locomotive Works in August 1894 as a Forney-type 0-4-4T tank engine, a compact design that packed its coal bunker and water tank onto the same frame as the locomotive itself so it needed no separate tender, useful for the tight, informal trackage of an industrial sugar operation. It was built for the Godchaux Sugar Company’s rail operation in Louisiana, which moved under the corporate name Lafourche, Raceland and Longport Railway, hauling harvested cane from the fields to the company’s mill.

Industrial Service and Discovery (1894–1950s)

The little Forney spent its early decades doing exactly the unglamorous work it was built for, hauling cane cars over Godchaux’s plantation trackage near Raceland, Louisiana. Around 1910 it was converted into a yard switch engine at the sugar mill itself, a demotion in duty but one that likely extended its working life well past that of most cane-railway power. By the mid-1950s the locomotive had deteriorated badly and was sitting largely forgotten in a Louisiana equipment yard when Disney’s studio machinists came looking for engines to expand the fledgling Disneyland Railroad.

Acquisition by Disney and Restoration (1955–1958)

Disneyland’s original railroad had opened with only two locomotives built new at the Disney Studios’ own machine shop, and Walt Disney wanted more authentic, older equipment to round out the roster. Roger Broggie, the Disney machinist and engineer who had overseen construction of the studio-built locomotives, located the old Louisiana Forney and arranged its purchase, reportedly for around $1,300 in its rough, working condition. The engine was shipped to California and rebuilt at the Disney Studios’ machine shop in Burbank, a restoration that ultimately cost more than $35,000, well beyond the purchase price, reflecting how much work the deteriorated engine actually needed before it could safely carry park guests.

Entry into Disneyland Railroad Service (1958)

The rebuilt locomotive entered service on the Disneyland Railroad on March 28, 1958, numbered 3 and named Fred Gurley in honor of Fred G. Gurley, then chairman of the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway. Santa Fe sponsored the Disneyland Railroad from the park’s 1955 opening through 1974, and naming steam locomotives after the railroad’s own executives was Disney’s way of publicly thanking its corporate partner, a naming convention followed for most of the park’s steam roster.

Later Rebuild and Current Status

Fred Gurley underwent a major mechanical rebuild in 2007 and 2008 that included a new boiler and conversion from oil to biodiesel fuel, part of a broader push across the Disneyland Railroad fleet toward cleaner-burning fuel without sacrificing the visual and audible experience of a coal-era steam locomotive. The engine remains in active daily service on the Disneyland Railroad today, circling the park’s roughly 1.2-mile loop, still popularly called the Grand Circle Tour, with stops at Main Street Station, New Orleans Square, Toontown, and Tomorrowland much as it has run since 1958. Of the five locomotives that have carried the Disneyland Railroad’s roster over the decades, Fred Gurley, built in 1894, is the oldest, and it is generally considered the oldest piece of operating railroad equipment in any Disney theme park worldwide, a distinction that owes as much to Roger Broggie’s original decision to save a deteriorating Louisiana switch engine as it does to the decades of maintenance since.