The vendor's father, Mr Samuel, was a train enthusiast and started to build his own 1/8th scale steam model railway in 1947 in his garden. Over the following 20 years the railway extended to over a mile long with tunnels, bridges, an engine shed, signals, signal boxes and up to 12 steam engines, all built to scale. Train lovers and fanatics were attracted to the site from all over the world. According to the vendor, in 1950 Walt Disney initiated the building of Carolwood Pacific Rail Road in California, a model railway designed to the exact dimensions of Samuel's Greywood Central Railway [GCR] in Surrey. The following year Disney made contact with Samuel to exchange ideas which led to visits from both parties to each other's steam railways. The vendor remembers Disney's trip to Greywood in 1953, where her mother prepared a lunch for Disney and his wife Lillian. Over the years Disney and Samuel became friends as well as advisors, as is evidenced by the correspondence in the following four lots.