Steam & Excursion > Great Time at Fillmore Railfest

Today myself and two friends drove to Fillmore for their Railfest. We took the first passenger train to Piru since 1953.
A great time was had by all. After going to Piru we went back to Fillmore got some Tri Tip Sandwiches and then went to Santa Paula. Our train had the F units while the other train set had
a GP-30/GP35 power set. They made three trips to each destination and will do so again Sunday. A story will be
coming next weeek.

http://www.trainweb.org/chris

Chris

My wife and I rode the next (12:30) train to Piru. This was powered by the GP-30 and GP-35 set. Pretty cool to be on trains not run for 53 years . Running the power around the train adds to the show. I have to admit that the F units looked fantastic. I really loved the operating Mars (Gyralite?) headlight that I remembered from the SP in the '70's.

I was very disappointed to hear that their 0-4-0 Porter was down with mudring problems. I ran it in 2004 on their "You are the Engineer" program. That was pure fun! What a blast! I am so glad to have done that! Who knows how long it will take to repair her.

It was good to see the turntable progress too!

> I was very disappointed to hear that their 0-4-0
> Porter was down with mudring problems. I ran it
> in 2004 on their "You are the Engineer" program.
> That was pure fun! What a blast! I am so glad
> to have done that! Who knows how long it will
> take to repair her.
>

I did not make it out this year as I am still (week 5) nursing a case of bronchitus. I rented the Porter once and that had to have been one of the highlites of my railfan hobby career. I would love to splurge and pay to take her out for a few hours across the Santa Clara River Valley when she returns. Hmmm, that might be fun. How about a day where Trainorders rents the railroad for some fun? They have some cool stuff out there.

Todd Clark
Trainorders.com

Todd,

Renting it out for a whole day would be fun and we should be able to ride over to Montalvo. I would jump on that one.

Chris

I remember riding one excursion from LA to Santa Barbara that went one way via Piru and the Santa Paula branch, probably 1962 or so. And IIRC the "farewell to steam" trip with a 4-6-0, a 2-6-0 (the 1765?) and a BW GP-9 in '58 went that way too.