Group Hopes Old Trains Will Pull Visitors to Station

The Santa Clarita Valley Historical Society thinks it has two little train engines that can--can bring the organization much-needed funds and delight area train buffs as well.

Two 1920s vintage locomotives, which once hauled rocks in quarries and mines, were delivered this week to the historic Saugus Train Station in Newhall.

The society purchased the engines along with three 100-year-old flatbed cars from a train museum in Ontario, Canada. An anonymous Santa Clarita Valley resident donated $17,000 to buy the small trains, said Sandra Forbes, a society spokeswoman.

The five cars were transported to Newhall on a flatbed truck and hoisted onto the grounds with a crane.

One engine is eight feet long, the other is 12 feet long. Each flatcar is 10 feet long. The wheels of the narrow-gauge trains are three feet apart, compared to the four-foot span of modern trains.

“They don’t look like regular engines,” Forbes said of the two locomotives, a seven-ton Brookville and an eight-ton Vulcan. “But they’ll do all right for our purposes.”

The organization plans to lay a half-mile loop of narrow-gauge track on the park grounds surrounding the Saugus station, install about 10 seats on each flatcar, attach the cars to the engines and sell train ride tickets, Forbes said. The rides will start within six months.

Under the terms of the donation, the train cars would be returned to the anonymous donor if the society decided to do away with the amusement.

Revenue from ticket sales will be used to restore a large steam engine the historical society was given in 1982, Forbes said. That locomotive, a Mogul Engine No. 1629, was used during its working life by the Southern Pacific Railroad in the San Fernando Valley.

The new attraction at the site will be called the Heritage Junction Railway. It joins five historic buildings, including the old Saugus train station.