Nostalgia & History > Roundhouse to "Roundhouse" in Santa Barbara

The story of the SP roundhouse in Santa Barbara has been told by others here on TO, but here's a quick review:
SB suffered a major earthquake in 1925 that pretty much wiped out the downtown area.  At the time "Mission Revival" architecture was all the rage in Southern California.  A group of Barbarians moved quickly to seize the moment.  They formed a review committee to coordinate the rebuilding of SB and deliver the Spanish Flavored city we see today.
Even the mighty SP was coaxed to rebuild their damaged roundhouse in the "new" style.  The result was a roundhouse intended to appear as a Spanish bullring to those enjoying a walk along East Beach.  I guess it sorta did- although, as a kid, I never made the connection- it was the only roundhouse I'd ever known.  I thought they all looked like that.

Fast forward about 40-50yrs.

Fess Parker (Disney's own Dan'l Boone) decided he needed to to get into the resort hotel business.  SP's bullring roundhouse was now a lumber warehouse and Fess chooses this beachfront site for his big project.  This sort of thing never goes easy in SB.  The architectural review process is painful.  Over and over Fess stormed out of city council meetings swearing they'll not have Fess Parker to kick around any more!!  But like the politician who broke the same promise before him- Fess came back.  His plans finally were approved, with a condition:
 His hotel's layout must include a nod to the historic SP roundhouse he was about to tear down.

Photo 1.   The SP's post-earth quake roundhouse.
Photo 2.   Fess Parker's homage.
Photo 3.   The pavers inside the "roundhouse" are intended to suggest a turntable with lines radiating out to stalls.

Photo 4.   Step inside for breakfast or lunch at the "Roundhouse" buffet.
Photo 5.   The decor has a bit of a RR theme with track spikes and...
Photo 6.   photography that includes this close up of the 4449's 3rd driver.

Photo 7.   An aerial of the SP's roundhouse
Photo 8.   Fess's "roundhouse" sits slightly NE of the original.
SR
 



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/05/17 01:25 by BoilingMan.

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So that's what happened to it! One day I trained by and it was gone. I'm putting my coonskin cap in the Goodwill box. Boooo Fess!

It was a nice roundhouse that just sort of "festered" into this. 

Jeez, Dale
SR

Sorry, couldn't help myself lol. Must be the mountain air

BoilingMan Wrote:
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> Jeez, Dale
> SR



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/05/17 00:40 by SP4360.

Can't undestand what all the fess was about.

SR, I con-fess: My wife claims that we can't afford to eat in the place, so next time in SB, she'll have to parker behind somewhere else. What do you charge guests for a meal on the boat?

EO

1930-31 Sanborn map:

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Does the Fess Parker version of the roundhouse contain any original fabric at all?  Or did they actually tear down the thing and build a flimsy not-very-accurate-looking replica?

Ah! That's more like it: fancy, intellectual discourse 'n stuff! (The rest of you cretans can take it back to the boonies where you came from!)

(snicker snicker)

No, nothing of the original remains- it doesn't sit on exactly the same spot and scale/ diameter of the building is all wrong. In fact, all these years (it was built in the mid 80's) I had thought the vague resemblance was just an odd coincidence. Recently I came across the fact that The City had actually required the thing! Yesterday was a rainy day, and looking for something to do, I wandered over to have a look. I'd never been in the place before.
SR

BTW: My Dad lived next door to Fess in Hope Ranch in the 70's. Fess had chickens. My Dad had big black Lab.
Things never went well- unless maybe you're a big black Lab (hold those 11 herbs & spices- yum!)



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/05/17 09:04 by BoilingMan.

More great goodies from Santa Barbara!
As a kid, I was driven past the shell of the old roundhouse more times than I can remember. By the '70's, those bushes in the old picture had turned into mighty trees and little was visible but the top of the building. I stopped once, probably '79 or '80 and wandered around in the inside. The turntable pit was filled in and everything was empty. I didn't stay long cause my dad always told me "hippies" lived in there and don't hang around.
Thanks for the history lesson, BoilingMan. The only thing I can add is there was some discussion of saving the original wall, but it didn't fit the plans and needed earthquake reinforcement or some other long list of why it could not be saved.
So, if you can't preserve the original, then a very nice job was done by building the new. My Sister's wedding reception was held there and I attended another family friend's wedding there. Terrific banquet seating and dance floor where the "Tile Turntable" is. The best of all is along the top of the new roundhouse wall is a balcony, absolutely excellent for sunset views of Santa Barbara through the palm trees, a most wonderful location for a big party.
By the way, the family friend's wedding I attended was Baptist and dry. I strode over to "The Roundhouse Bar" you pictured here and ordered me a proper Gin "James Bond" Martini. Everyone thought I was going to be struck down by lightning.  But hey, I was going to have a good time!   

Memories,

I remember the back side of the roundhouse when I was little driving down Cabrillo Blvd. with my grandfather.  Once and awhile you would see the front of a steam engine through the dirty windows.  In later years ( early 60s?)  driving across Milpas St., the RH was still there but it was a lumber yard of sorts. There were cars spotted in there but I don't remember if the turntable was there or it was gone.  Somewhere in my distant memory I remember a switch engine parked in that area once and awhile but couldn't place a date.  My spins book in the area only goes from Santa Margarita to Goleta. 
My SP Circular No. 4, July 1961, shows Santa Barbara had a 100' Electric operated turntable. It was a 3-Point DPG installed in 1936.

I do remember when  Fess Parker's name came up every once and awhile at the ranch. My grandmother thought it was so ugly, "... blue and silver glaring in the sun.."  He either built or purchased and expanded a mobile home park in the area of Highway 154 and Highway 101.  I think that would have been in the late 50s or early 60s.  The next thing I remember was when he brought up property in the area of the old yard and roundhouse as mentioned in the thread above. 

Years later, when I worked for the SP, we got on and off freights at the old freight house & passenger up by the depot. The first time I operated a train east of Santa Barbara was when we went inter divisional with the San Joaquin engineers in the early 70s.  By then, most of the yard tracks were gone. I think there was a track left on the land side, next to the west main, to serve customers but could be used as a small siding. There were 2 tracks left on the ocean side. They were old yard tracks and spaced a bit away from the eastbound main and each other. One was a spur of sorts and  one went all the way way through. It joined the east main at its own spring switch, east of the east/ west spring switch. There were a few short spurs off that track, towards where the RH used to be.  There was a signal bridge for east trains before the first spring switch going east. Coming west there was a two head signal for westbound trains. High green, down the west main over both SS. Low yellow (then lunar). the switch was lined for the yard.  The switching was done by the Oxnard switcher or the "Gaviota Ghost" as it was called.


Nudge

 



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/05/17 11:35 by spnudge.

Nudge, here are some early-mid 70's photos to illustrate what you're talking about...

Photo 1.  Looking West, this is the Oxnard Switcher (Gaviota Ghost).  They're sitting in that single track that served various industries on the mountain side, including a track that ran a couple of blocks up Salsiputes or Quarintina Street I think- I can't remember exactly.  I'm standing on the West Main, then there's the East Main, and further off are the remains of the yard tracks you mentioned.  Way off to left, where the tall trees are silhouetted, was the old ice house track where produce reefers were iced, but those tracks were gone by this time.  (the buildings themselves lingered for several years)  The Ghost is holding for Amtrak 11 that will be by soon, and then follow them back to Oxnard to tie up.

Photo 2.   This is 11 passing under the signal bridge you described.  I'm standing on Milpas Street looking East.  In front of me you can see rail from the first (abandoned) yard track embedded in the pavement.  Next is a yard track and then, just beyond the signal, is the old roundhouse lead.

Photo 3.  11 again, and in the far right edge of the photo is the roundhouse lead again.

Photo 4.   When the AFT visited SB the '49 was spotted on the roundhouse lead.  The date of this photo would be Jan 1st or 2nd 1976.  (I snagged my job aboard the AFT about 2wks later)

Thanks for your detailed memories, Nudge-  I get the biggest kick out of them!
SR



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/05/17 16:44 by BoilingMan.

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Thanks for the great history lesson.  I worked the Gaviota job many times and spotted cars at the lumber yard , rock place, paper , Jordanos, the scale track, and the team track.  thanks for the great memories !  I never heard the job called the Ghost.  The Coast division was given the job for a short time every year to run off the inter divisional mileage.  The rest of the time it was awarded to the San Joaquin Division. 

As a side note on the switcher:

Dick Swartz was the Local Chairman for the BLE Division 126 in Bakersfield and I was the the LC of Division 664 in SLO for the BLE.  The San Joaquin engineers owed the Coast a ton of miles from the Ghost and Swartz wouldn't give us the job as described in the agreement provisions. Those provisions stated that owed mileage would be run off in like service.  Every day the Ghost went to work they owed us 62.6 miles. With a 100 mile day being the norm you can see why the miles added up so fast.  Even if the switcher didn't go west of Santa Barb, the crew was paid for it, so we were owed the miles.  Every freight run owed the Coast  38 miles. He wanted to run the miles off in the pool. At that time the SJ owed us tons of miles in the pool and the carrier was not going to cross deadhead on a mileage dispute.  I had to force the General Chairman to make the decision and Cleveland had to send a VP out to enforce it.  (The reason for "Ghost" was the fact they never went to Gaviota, maybe once or twice. They would go to Goleta & La Patera but thats about it)

We were given the switcher and it was going to be over a year before the mileage was run off.  (Senior was the No. 1 hoghead on the SJ and that was his job. Boy was he pissed.) 
I made sure I was deadheaded down as the first engineer so I could see what the job entailed first hand.  Went to Santa Barbara twice and up the Ventura Branch once to Nitroshell with a LPG car. The one trip up the branch almost cost us our jobs.  We left our train on the main down at the Jct and went up the hill. (We had plenty of time our conductor said) Well we had to drop a car up there and it stalled on the switch. The train crew had to find lumber, ties, etc so we could "Pole" the car in the clear and get back down the hill. We got our train off the main and backed into the branch just as no. 12 was getting color west of Ema Wood beach. The Coast trainmen already were working the Ghost a few months before I got  there.  I was there 3 days and was bumped by Tony Emanuel on a 3 day hold down. He was a Coast Engineer and had been working the Lompoc job for years. 

Tony worked the job for awhile  when he was on the engine going up the hill on the Ventura Branch. In a cut they met a runaway LPG car coming down the hill. The two brakeman jumped and ran up the cut and survived. Tony & a LA Division Conductor didn't have time to do anything. The loaded car hit the engine and the tank ruptured. For some reason it didn't ignite or you would have read about the town of Ventura that "USED" to exist. The liquid burned them (froze) them to death. The conductor died that night and Tony died in a burn unit the next day.  

Kids had been playing on the cars, knocked the brakes off and one car got away. (Those Buda type hump derails are not worth a damn) The boys, in their teens, got their hands slapped, that was all. 


Nudge



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/06/17 13:12 by spnudge.