Neverland Train Station

I’ve been meaning to share my research into the Neverland train station for quite some time, and I’ve finally sat down to pull everything together. It’s a long story, but the details matter, because the timeline surrounding the construction of the station has been repeatedly used as a tool to discredit allegations. What began as a simple curiosity about a set of planning permits gradually turned into a much deeper investigation, one that revealed inconsistencies, contradictions, and a surprising amount of overlooked evidence. The whole thing started in early 2019, when Michael Jackson biographer Mike Smallcombe provided planning permits for the Neverland train station to The Mirror. These permits were dated 2 September 1993, and Smallcombe used them to argue that the station did not exist at the time James Safechuck said the abuse occurred. His claim was straightforward: if the station wasn’t built until after September 1993, then James must be lying. But when I looked at the plans Smallcombe shared, something immediately struck me as odd. The architectural drawings he presented didn’t match the final building. The proportions were different, the layout was different, and even the relationship between the tracks and the retaining wall didn’t line up with photographs of the completed structure. That discrepancy alone made me wonder whether the story was more complicated than Smallcombe suggested. Around the same time, I watched an interview with Harrison Funk, Michael Jackson’s longtime photographer and a vocal defender of Jackson’s innocence. In the interview, Funk claimed that the train station had been built without a permit. That statement directly contradicted Smallcombe’s argument that the station was built after the September 1993 permit was issued. If Funk was right, the station existed before the permit. If Smallcombe was right, it didn’t. Both couldn’t be true, and the contradiction pushed me to dig deeper. One of the first pieces of evidence I examined was a construction photograph that appeared in a Wisconsin newspaper on 14 December 1993. The caption claimed the photo had been taken the day before, on 13 December. But when I compared that image to later photographs of the completed station, something didn’t add up. In the construction photo, the rails were positioned almost flush against the retaining wall. There was barely any space between the concrete slab and the wall—just enough for the rails themselves. But in later images of the finished station, there was a substantial gap, several feet wide, between the outer rail and the retaining wall. That difference wasn’t minor. It suggested that the retaining wall had either been moved or that the construction photo depicted an earlier version of the station entirely. Moving the retaining wall would have been structurally impossible. The wall supported the load of the second‑floor loft, meaning it was integral to the building’s stability. You can’t simply shift a load‑bearing retaining wall three feet without demolishing and rebuilding the entire structure. That alone made the December 1993 date suspicious. If the construction photo showed rails nearly touching the wall, but the final station had a four‑foot gap, then the photo likely didn’t show the same station at all. The official plans submitted in September 1993 reinforced this point. The drawings clearly indicated a three‑foot rail width and a four‑foot gap between the outer rail and the retaining wall. In other words, the design required that space. The construction photo, with rails pressed almost against the wall, didn’t match the approved plans. That discrepancy strongly suggested that the construction photo depicted an earlier build—what I now refer to as Station 1—rather than the later, officially permitted Station 2. Further evidence came from the retaining wall plans themselves. On the September 1993 station plans, the retaining wall specifications appeared to have been physically cut and pasted—literally scissors‑and‑glue style—from an older document. The date on the retaining wall specs was 15 March 1992, a full eighteen months before the station permit was issued. That raised an obvious question: why were 1992 retaining wall plans being attached to a 1993 station permit? It implied that the retaining wall already existed by early 1992, long before the supposed construction period of late 1993. Photographs from August 1993, taken shortly after the Chandler allegations became public, added even more weight to the idea that the station pre‑dated the official permit. In these photos, the rails were already in place. If you zoom in, you can see the intersection of the tracks clearly. They weren’t being installed—they were already installed, and then buried under tons of gravel. The station building itself wasn’t visible yet, but the infrastructure was undeniably there. Another August 1993 photo shows the floral clock, the rails, and a large mound of dirt where the retaining wall should have been. Again, no station building, but unmistakable evidence of earlier construction activity. Eyewitness accounts further supported the idea that the station existed before the official construction period. Frank Cascio, who visited Neverland during Spring Break 1993, wrote in his book that he was impressed by the train station. Some defenders of Jackson have tried to argue that he must have been referring to the small Flamingo train stop, but that structure was tucked away among trees and was little more than a shaded wooden platform. It’s unlikely that a teenager would confuse a modest wooden stop with a large, ornate, two‑storey train station. Cascio’s description fits the main station, not the Flamingo stop. Former housekeeper Judi Brisse also recalled the station being part of her responsibilities on her very first day of work, 23 January 1993. Although she later said the station was built while she was employed there, her initial statement places the station’s existence at least eight months before the September 1993 permit. Her recollection of maintaining the station area suggests that something substantial was already present. Then there’s Robert Wegner, Neverland’s former security chief. He stated that the full‑size train was delivered about a year after he began working for Jackson. Since he started in December 1990, that would place the train’s arrival in 1992, not late 1993 as the official delivery date claims. Wegner was clearly referring to the large steam train, not the smaller amusement‑park‑style train. If the full‑size train arrived in 1992, the tracks would have needed to be installed around the same time, which again contradicts the claim that construction began in late 1993. The bronze animal statues that stood in front of the station provide yet another clue. These sculptures were delivered in spring 1993, according to videos on the artist’s website. Harrison Funk claimed he photographed the statues in June 1994, but a video showing their initial installation contradicts that timeline. In the footage, the station behind the statues looks different from the final version. There is a strange dormer‑like addition on the veranda roof that doesn’t appear in the September 1993 plans or in the plans provided by the builder, Tony Urquidez. The roof in the video is brown, whereas the official plans specify grey slate tiles. The veranda roof also shows signs that something had previously been attached to it, possibly the odd dormer structure seen in the video. All of this suggests that the building in the video was an earlier version of the station—again pointing to the existence of Station 1. When you put all these pieces together, a pattern emerges. The official plans don’t match the final structure. The retaining wall appears to have been in a different position in earlier photographs. Rails were installed and buried before the official construction period. Multiple eyewitnesses recall the station existing months before the September 1993 permit. The full‑size train seems to have arrived in 1992. The bronze statues were installed in 1993 with a station behind them that doesn’t match the later design. Each piece of evidence on its own might be dismissed as a mistake or a misremembering, but collectively they form a coherent timeline. Based on everything I’ve found, I believe that Station 1—the first version of the Neverland train station—was built sometime between mid‑1992 and early 1993. It was fully functional by March 1993, when Jackson invited several boys to Neverland, including Jordan Chandler. Then, in mid‑1993, likely around July, Station 1 was demolished. Only after that demolition did Jackson apply for the permit for Station 2, the version that appears in the official records and matches the final structure. One final detail reinforces this timeline. A comparison I made using a screenshot from an old video clearly shows the retaining wall in a different position in Station 1 compared to Station 2. The train in the video also has a black nose. The Katherine train, which Jackson used in the early 1990s, had a white nose. Even in low‑quality footage, the white nose should be visible, just like the concrete and the pocket watch in the frame. The black‑nosed train suggests that the footage predates the Katherine train’s repainting, again pointing to an earlier construction period. Taken together, the evidence strongly suggests that the Neverland train station existed well before the official 1993 permit and that the structure seen in later photographs was actually the second iteration of the station. The first version appears to have been built quietly, without permits, and then removed shortly before the official paperwork for the second version was filed.