Closed for renovation?

[Strangely enough, the rest of their photos at Disneyland show themselves and scads of other visitors inside the park, walking around, going in rides etc. -tterrace]

I think this photo catches the sign immediately after Disneyland had celebrated the 10 millionth visitor in January 1958, and the sign (with its population number) was being updated to say 10 million or being kept blank for an official 10 million ceremony. Last time I looked the sign now reads over 650,000,000.

A pre-update photo:

The blank signboard might be related to there being a Santa Fe logo where the Disneyland Railroad logo normally is, so maybe they were shooting a movie, commercial, or photo stills on that day.

[The Santa Fe sign was on the train station from opening day until 1974, as the Atcheson, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway was an original sponsor of the "Santa Fe & Disneyland Railroad." The sign change in 1974 reflected the attraction's renaming to "Disneyland Railroad." -tterrace]

I immediately recognized the contraption under the blank station sign as being the type of handcar that Laura Ingalls Wilder describes her father and other men using to ride along the train tracks in the Dakota Territory in The Long Winter - two men would stand on each side of the platform and take turns pushing the metal bar down to move the car forward - she described them as appearing to bow deeply to each other. It must have been absolutely backbreaking to travel in this way.

Where there are no lines at Disneyland and the station is anywhere you wish it to be.