Now, kids, you give the nice people...

Now, kids, you give the nice people their freight train back: The L.A.-bound Union Pacific train came to a halt near a residential section of Riverside and the crew members clambered off, having finished their 12-hour shifts. Problem was, the replacement crew never showed up.

The mile-long coal train was abandoned with all its engines idling.

“It was around 3 p.m. and, of course, school was letting out,” recounted Riverside City Councilwoman Joy Defenbaugh. “Once the youngsters discovered no one was aboard, they got all over it. They got in the cabs and they were fiddling with everything, pulling levers, blowing horns and whistles. That train’s engines aren’t quiet, either. If anyone had figured out how to start it, we could have had a real tragedy.”

The youngsters joy-idled the Ghost Train, as it’s become known, for more than three hours before Riverside police and fire units shooed them away. Union Pacific showed up about seven hours after abandoning ship.

“I don’t know whether the (original) crew had been scheduled to arrive in L.A. or what,” Defenbaugh said. (Our calls to Union Pacific’s L.A. office were not returned).

The city of Riverside officially protested the October incident. And the railroad recently agreed to pay $346 of the Police and Fire departments’ expenses and to issue an apology.

The school kids, by the way, did not file a protest.

Please--a little respect!John Suderman came across a city of Burbank form that seemed to place senior citizens in a strange category.

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Clinton’s secret plan for passage of the health care reform bill?A press release from Malibu Comics reveals that in a coming episode, “the strongest ultrahuman in the Ultraverse,” a character named Prime, is “recruited by President Clinton to go on a secret mission.” Prime, by the way, has “an adult body and the mind of a teen-ager.” Gee, if that episode’s made into a movie, we can think of plenty of adult actors to play Prime.

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A belated toast: To the Derby restaurant in Los Feliz, which held a 60th anniversary celebration of the repeal of Prohibition last Sunday. The eatery, once one of the Brown Derby restaurants, began life in 1929 with a somewhat less romantic name: Willard’s Chicken Inn.

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Play it again, Dick!No longer can we decry Mayor Richard Riordan’s lamentable lack of TV credits. His Honor just taped a Jan. 2 appearance on “The Johnny Yune Show,” L.A.’s first bilingual Korean/English variety series (KSCI-Channel 18). The mayor, wearing jeans and a shirt, will pound out “When I Fall in Love” and “As Time Goes By” on the piano. Set your VCRs for 10 p.m., 1943.

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The next Hollywood celeb to seek exile?Still furious over losing a $3.3-million libel suit to Elke Sommer in Santa Monica Superior Court, Zsa Zsa Gabor said: “I speak seven languages. I don’t have to live in America.”

Gabor went on to mention another country that loves her every bit as much as the United States--England.

Luckily, English is one of her seven languages.

miscelLAny:

The Take Five Cafe is throwing a Christmas party featuring psychics, comics, bands and “the world’s first celebrity pinata collection” Sunday afternoon. An accompanying announcement says the cafe, at 7181 Sunset Boulevard, is located in “the historic Famous Amos Cookie Building.”