I’m just back from London, where I saw an epic concert, walked through the Abbey Road crosswalk, and visited allllllll the pubs. And while there, I met An Englishman in Paris, who is a fan of The Earful Tower and the music I make for the show.
He had most of my books with him in the pub where we met. That blew my mind.
I’ll write more about London later. Maybe in the next book.
I’ve been reading about the golden age of Disney animation. One article caught my eye. It was a mention of the group of Disney animators that became a famous for something other than drawing: Dixieland jazz.
If you don’t know this about me, here it is: I love Dixieland jazz. My grandfather loved it too, and would play cassettes of his favorites in the car. He’d change the tape nearly every song as if there weren’t enough time to show you every tune he loved.
But Grandpa never introduced me to the Firehouse 5 plus 2 and their charismatic leader, Ward Kimball. For any of you hardcore Disney fans out there, you know Ward Kimball as one of Walt’s “Nine Old Men,” a group of animators that created some of the studio’s most endearing work.
But I’ll get to Dixieland jazz in a sec. Ward loved three things: trains, music, and art.
First, trains. They couldn’t be contained to Ward’s imagination. They became his primary hobby as an adult. He maintained his own railway line on his property. It was more than just machinery. It was a form of creative expression.
And as you’ll see in a moment, Ward didn’t live on an estate. He was in a suburb. Imagine your neighbor has a fully working locomotive in his yard. That was Ward.
Assembling and maintaining his train was what storytellers call “world building:” creating an imaginative environment in which to craft stories. In order to expand on this world, Ward had a windmill, a depot, a water tower, a roundhouse barn, and nearly 900 straight feet of track.
A few things are worth noting: The facade of the depot was a former movie set for 1949’s Disney movie So Dear to My Heart. When it was to be discarded, Walt gave it to Ward, who brought it home and built it out.
Ward’s train helped rekindle Walt’s love for trains and inspired both the train in the Disneys’ backyard as well as the train at Disneyland. That’s not just world building. That’s iconic world building.
Ward also loved music. He was a truly skilled jazz trombone player. With other animators from Disney’s company, he formed a Dixieland jazz band. According to him, the animators would casually play along with records during lunch breaks.
Ward said, “One day the phonograph broke down right in the middle of ‘Royal Garden Blues.’ Undaunted, we kept right on playing and found to our amazement that we sounded pretty good all by ourselves.”
While that story is charming, the reality is that Ward and his animator friends played casually in the Disney offices and their homes for years before officially becoming the Firehouse 5 Plus 2.
They played Disney company events and some local jazz clubs. Ward owned a 1914-era fire truck, and they rode to every gig in it dressed in red shirts, white suspenders, and fire hats.
They became a sensation. Firehouse 5 Plus 2 sold out rowdy gigs. We’re talking lines-around-the-block type of stuff. The band signed a record deal with Good Time Jazz Records, and Walt gave his blessing as long as none of the members quit drawing for him. And none of them did.
They had a 20+ year career. 14 albums. Numerous television appearances and film soundtrack credits.
Making it big as musicians, as well as cartoonists and artists, is a fantastic feat. Like playing in the NFL and the MLB. Like having the diversity and quality of talent to be both a member of the Royal Shakespeare Company and the New York City Ballet.
Personally, I can’t get enough of Dixieland. The trumpet, clarinet, and trombone are almost always weaving an intricate web of melody, but never in each other’s way. The stride piano and strumming banjo cap it off.
Give the Firehouse 5 Plus 2 a listen:
Lastly, Ward had art. He drew some of Disney’s most beloved early characters. For instance, here’s a video of Ward talking about his process behind Jiminy Cricket.
And here’s Walt and Ward with the Mad Hatter from Alice in Wonderland.
Ward also played a big part in Disney’s breakout picture, Snow White. He spent months drawing the dwarves soup scene, but it was eventually cut. But I love seeing it in its state before ink and color. Every drawing is Ward’s:
He wasn’t just a cartoonist, though. He painted, he taught art classes, and eventually published a book of altered masterpieces. Some are funny, some are poignant, some are irreverent.
So what happened to all of it? Sure, Ward passed away more than 20 years ago, but he left more than a mark on people’s hearts. Where is the fire truck? The locomotives? Does his train yard still exist?
Well, they’re out there.
The Firehouse 5 Plus 2’s fire truck is in the Los Angeles County Fire Museum. Those folks are obviously passionate about the maintenance of antique fire equipment, so it’s in good hands. They are also excited about the vehicle’s history with Ward and Disney.
As for Ward’s locomotives, they’re in the Southern California Railway Museum just south of Riverside. The one in this picture is named Emma Nevada.
Those were easy to locate. But I wondered about the rest of it. What did Ward’s property look like now?
I found Ward’s former property on Google maps. The house has been replaced (labeled as 8910), but there are still plenty of traces of the railroad. I added a yellow arrow to show where the tracks used to cross the driveway. The green arrow shows where the depot and the water tower used to be. But the roundhouse barn still exists (the blue arrow at the bottom).
Note the surrounding homes. As previously mentioned, this property was not remote.
Then, I went looking for the water tower and depot. And the answer is interesting, if unsurprising.
In the decades after Ward Kimball worked at Disney, the company acquired Pixar Animation and with it, Chief Creative Officer John Lasseter. Lasseter is responsible for many classic modern characters, such as Buzz Lightyear and Lightning McQueen. He left Disney in 2019 and now heads animation at Skydance Films.
And like many Disney leaders before him, he loves trains. He also built his own railway on his northern California property, which now includes Ward’s depot and water tower.
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I doubt I’ll ever get a chance to see the Lasseter’s railway. It’s adjacent to his family’s winery, but it’s private. I’d love to ride it though. However, if I’m anywhere near Anaheim, I will absolutely drop in on the fire truck and the locomotives.
And this summer when we take the kids to Disney World, I’ll proudly wear my Firehouse 5 Plus 2 t-shirt in tribute to a creative powerhouse.
So cool! Love hearing about multifaceted, multipassionate creatives. Artists are artists are artists!