Fort Wilderness Railroad

I love Fort Wilderness, a hidden oasis of relaxation among the hustle and bustle of the parks. Fort Wilderness offers camping sites for tents, campers and trailers along with Wilderness Cabins. Fort Wilderness opened in 1971 shortly after the Magic Kingdom. Being such a huge resort, it is difficult to get around without some sort of transportation. If you stay at Fort Wilderness today, Disney provides internal transportation by bus. While efficient, it certainly isn’t exciting at all.

On the Disney Parks Blog today, they have a fantastic article about the Fort Wilderness Railroad, which transported guests around the resort from 1973 until it closed in 1980.

To give you an idea of the size of the resort, the track was 3 1/2 miles long, and had several stops. Part of the problem with the railroad is that it was basically custom built, smaller tracks, smaller trains, smaller everything. It eventually closed down due to maintenance issues as well as pedestrian safety and noise. Did you know many of the train cars can still be found around the Walt Disney World property?