pastorofmuppets
Seriously...how many train conductors become folk legends and have museums dedicated to them? I'm familiar with Disneyfication but there comes a point where you're just animating WWII as people lobbing gumdrops at a Churchill-lookin' walrus.

cognitivedissonance
I was lucky enough to actually know one of the uncredited animators on this when I was a kid (Disney's anti-Unionism was so strict that only specific animators were credited as a "fuck you" to the union), teaching drawing to a bunch of kids in a Montessori. He explained that there actually WAS a whole row about the ending, and the original storyboards DID include a grim coda where Casey coming in with the mail was just a dream of the station clerk.

The Disneyfication came when Walt couldn't decide whether post-mortem Casey was to be shown in Heaven (for his dutiful nature) or in Hell (for his careless disregard).

Bort
On "The Real Ghostbusters" they resolved Disney's dilemma by having Casey Jones's ghost wander the earth until he could prevent a trainwreck, and thus earn his reward.

Mind you, in that episode he put two trains on a collision course so he could subsequently prevent them from crashing, so I am figuring his reward was based on "careless disregard".

bac
Your post seems to leave out that Casey Jones stayed on his train to slow it down in an attempt to save lives.