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Author Writes About Disney’s Love of Trains

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Out of the scores of books written about the late Walt Disney, a new work has recently emerged exploring the connection between his love for trains and the building of his magical empire.

Author Michael Broggie of Newbury Park will speak about his first book, “Walt Disney’s Railroad Story: The Small-Scale Fascination that Led to a Full-Scale Kingdom,” on Sunday at 3 p.m. at Barnes & Noble Bookstore in Thousand Oaks.

Before signing copies of his book, Broggie will present a slide show on Disney and his trains, many of the images culled directly from the Disney family photo album.

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“It confounded me that [no one had] picked up on Walt’s train theme, seeing as how all of his parks are surrounded by steam engines,” said Broggie, whose father, Roger Broggie, was hired to build the Disney studio’s camera equipment in the 1930s.

So the younger Broggie set to work, gathering photographs and interviewing the Disney family, including 99-year-old Lillian Disney, Walt Disney’s widow, who lives in Holmby Hills.

On Friday, the 55-year-old Broggie proudly displayed a black-and-white picture of himself at the age of 12, sitting at Walt Disney’s knee during a train ride through what would soon become Disneyland. The shot was taken by Broggie’s father, who died in 1991.

In fact, Broggie originally had set out about 10 years ago to write a book about his father. But midway through, he chose to emphasize Disney--who died in 1966--and weave his dad in throughout.

Disney was fascinated by trains, Broggie said, because he admired the thousands of immigrants who built America’s railroads.

Broggie is now a marketing strategist, a consulting historian for the Disney Institute and the founder of the Carolwood Pacific Historical Society, which has a mission to preserve the legacy of the steam engine and generate interest in railroading.

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He has been lucky most of his life, he said.

“Through no more than a fortunate circumstance of birth, I was afforded the privilege of knowing the remarkable man who preferred to be called Uncle Walt,” Broggie writes.

Broggie still smiles when he remembers weekends spent at the Disney house, where, in 1950, Disney built his first working train in his backyard, with a tunnel running under his wife’s garden.

“My brother Roger [Jr.] and I would be given a cloth to wipe down the trains for his guests,” Broggie said. “We were the crew. . . . Then Walt used to pour libations for the adults and make [elaborate] ice cream sundaes with cherries and nuts for the kids.

“This book is to show that personal side of Walt, when he wasn’t onstage.”

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