Looks like the characters dance at the railroad or castle from some old videos.
Is that still done? What’s it called?
Can’t find any info.
It’s not the magic happens parade
I think they stopped the railroad show well before the pandemic?
But, in park:
https://disneyworld.disney.go.com/entertainment/magic-kingdom/magic-kingdom-welcome/
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Thanks! I knew that stopped that at magic kingdom a while back.
What about for Disneyland??
Whoops! I had the forum sorted to show Latest threads and did not realize you posted this in the DL area.
Oh well. 
The last time I was in DL was about 1989, so any info I have is probably a little out of date.
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I do this all the time 
For once it’s nice to see someone else do it
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My brain:
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Earlier this year I saw characters dance with the band and Dapper Dans in front of the train station. Not sure if they still do it, but looking at today’s entertainment both the band & Dapper Dans play on MS at 11:45, would assume together but don’t know about characters.
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Any appearance by characters on the train platform is very spontaneous and never posted or announced anywhere. Checking when the band plays is a good idea. And usually for a show like that it needs to be a Thur-Mon, or even Fri-Mon (i.e. they won’t run a lot of the smaller atmosphere entertainment like this if it’s mid-week)
Lately we have seen them waving from the train platform right as the park opens and then about 20-30 min before the park closes (but they wrap up a few minutes before closing).
As for the shows by the castle. Those are all with the Disneyland Band and usually it’s Mary Poppins and Bert. But there may be some other characters depending on the day.
One big thing about DLR and characters is you can’t expect any of the plans for it to stick. They are very spontaneous with all things characters & often stray from the posted schedule and we have had more than one CM on more than one occasion outright lie to us about if/when a character would be there (saying they wouldn’t & encouraging us to move along, only to be still dawdling around the area not too far away and have the character come out anyway). This is definitely a measure they use for crowd (well more like mob) control. It’s an unfortunate reality of having a park that’s so easily accessible to a very populated that comes often and all learn the tricks.
The big upside to this is there are SO many, many unplanned, spontaneous much more than offered characters that come out and do roaming meets or sometimes even a traditional line & meet. For the roaming you’ll get fantastic interactions but they don’t stop but more than a milkisecond for a photo so you do have to be quick to the draw on those if you want the photo. But if you keep your eyes open, you’ll be able to get quite a bit of interaction and really good interaction too, and when you’re quick to the draw, some really great impromptu photos.
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When it comes to characters there’s a benefit to not looking at your phone. Keep your eyes open and eventually you can get a feel for spotting the character assistants(?) before the character appears. Last trip I saw a few milling about near the Mad Hatter on Main Street, took a quick scan for a photo pass photographer, spotted one by the opera house, and had my family second in line by the time Mickey appeared and started walking that direction.
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