Theme Park Thursdays feature photos from one of our theme park adventures in the past.

Sitting Sideways on the Animal Kingdom Train (2007)

Following up last week's post about seat orientation on Disney railroads, we visit Disney's Animal Kingdom in 2007, which also has a train line. Granted, unlike the Magic Kingdom-style stream versions, AK's train is diesel-powered — but made to look like it is steam.

Look this way... ONLY!

The Wildlife Express connects Africa to Rafiki's Planet Watch on a rather short run. Like Disneyland's train, the seats also are oriented to point you to one side. However, unlike Disneyland, you can't actually see behind the seats — it's blocked off. Apparently, Disney didn't want to invest in theme for both sides of the train tracks, so they decorated one side, and left the backstage areas "as is" on the blocked side. As my friend Jason Steele noted, this better enables them to hide "drunk cast members, dead bodies, discarded trash, and piles of money."