WALT LOVED TRAINS; T.O. MAN WRITES BOOK ABOUT DISNEY.

Byline: Gloria Gonzales Daily News Staff Writer

As a boy, Michael Broggie thought nothing of stepping into Walt Disney's office to say hello and chat.

``I knew little about office protocol, and I was always on the lot,'' said Broggie, whose father, Roger Broggie, worked as one of the original ``imagineers'' at Disney's animation studios. ``His secretary would check and see if he was in and I would go in and we'd talk about movies and cartoons.''

They might also chat about railroads, steam locomotives or one-eighth scale hobby trains. Disney had always had an interest in trains and railroads, a hobby that provided the inspiration for Disneyland.

And Roger Broggie, a precision machinist who developed and built highly specialized animation cameras for the studio, also helped his boss build and restore locomotives, including a one-eighth scale steam locomotive that ran on 2,615 feet of track around Disney's Holmby Hills home.Michael Broggie, who shares his father's love of trains, has written a book exploring how Disney's love of railroads influenced the creation of both Disneyland and the entire Disney empire.

``Walt Disney grew up in Marceline, Wisconsin, which was one of a series of towns built on the Santa Fe route from Fort Madison, Wisconsin, all the way into Kansas,'' said Broggie, sitting in an office in his Newbury Park home overflowing with model trains, books about trains and train photographs. ``He loved trains and he loved history . . . this is a story about a man whose life happens to be intertwined with railroads. . . . He envisioned Disneyland as a place like Marceline, with a steam locomotive running through it.''

Broggie will sign his books and give a presentation about the Disney locomotives at 3 p.m. Sunday at the Barnes & Noble Bookstore at The Promenade at Westlake.

The book is part biography, part studio history and part railroad lore. Its 431 pages are rife with photographs, drawings and documents outlining Disney family and railroad history. Broggie culled materials, including 350 photographs, from the Disney family collection.

``When I started thinking about the book in 1993, I went to Lilly Disney and told her what I was thinking about doing,'' Broggie said. ``She told me that she thought a book about my father and Walt and their love of trains was a wonderful idea, and she offered me complete access to family documents and photographs.''

Disney's love of trains shows up in his early animated films, and at all his theme parks, Broggie said. Steam engines still run at all Disney parks, and the smaller-scale train ride tunnel Disney built as part of his home railroad was said to be the inspiration for the early theme park rides.

Broggie said he had several motives for writing the book: his own interest in trains and railroad history, to encourage hobbyists and to encourage preservation of antique locomotives, particularly steam engines. But he also sought to write a book based partly on his own memories of Disney, in part to debunk recent biographies alleging the empire-builder's ``dark side.''

One of the myths debunked in Broggie's book is legend that Disney's body - or parts of it - was cryogenically frozen.

``It's one of many untruths written about him,'' Broggie said. ``It's true that at the time of his death, the Disney imagineers were working on cryogenics to learn about the best temperatures for wax figures in displays . . . and that fueled the rumors.''

The book is also a tribute to Broggie's father, one of a small group of faithful and talented men who helped build the Disney empire. Broggie's one regret is that his father, who died in 1991, did not live to see the book's publication.

``One of the four restored Baldwin steam locomotives at Disney World is named the Roger Broggie,'' he said. ``My father oversaw its restoration, along with one named the Walt Disney. He found these two 1925 Baldwins in the Yucatan Peninsula, where they were about to be converted to diesel. They had consecutive boilerplate numbers, mechanically, they were twins. . . . They are now beautifully restored, and the two engines will run together as long as they run steam engines at Disney World.''

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Photo: (color in CONEJO edition only) Newbury Park resident Michael Broggie has written a book about his father's and family pal Walt Disney's fascination with trains.

John Lazar/Special to the Daily News