Old Ties Tug; Train Buffs Fix Up Depot

Jim Reese’s love affair with trains began as a youngster, when his grandfather would take him down to the railroad tracks in Santa Fe Springs. Now 30, Reese is still a train buff.

He is one of about a dozen train lovers who spend their Saturdays painting walls, refinishing floors and repairing windows at the Santa Susana Southern Pacific Railroad Depot on the eastern edge of Simi Valley.

Their goal is to restore the 83-year-old, yellow-and-brown building. The volunteer group, called the Santa Susana Model Railroad Club, has been working on the project since July, with members paying for the materials out of their own pockets. So far, they have spent about $500, mostly on paint.

“Everybody’s here because they love trains,” said Reese, a Culver City graphic designer. “My grandfather and I used to sit and wait for the trains. It was something about the size, the color, the noise--things that a kid would be awed by. Now, it probably has more to do with power.”

The 24-by-113-foot depot, said to be the last of its kind in Ventura County, was originally along the railroad tracks in the center of town, on Los Angeles Avenue. In 1974, Simi Valley residents launched a campaign to save the depot from demolition, and the building was moved to its present site on Katherine Road at the entrance to Santa Susana Park.

For years, the depot was a neglected relic of Simi Valley’s history. Vandals shot out the windows, and the paint was badly chipped. In 1979, arsonists set fire to the building, destroying the entire second floor, which had been the stationmaster’s living quarters.

Since it began work on the building, the model-railroad club has restored the depot’s waiting room: among other things, the pine bench lining the walls has been refinished, and the floor has been repainted its original gray-blue.

The group is now working on the ticket room: “We’re trying to get it to look the way it did in 1903 as much as we can,” Reese said.

After the work is finished, the group wants to put a model train inside, to run from the waiting room to the ticket room. They hope that the station then will serve as a train museum.

“It’s a fantasy, really,” Reese said. “You can be in anyplace, at anytime, without going anywhere.”