Traveling Along the Right Track : Cities Hope Planned Scenic Railway Will Draw Tourists to Santa Clara River Valley

By early next century, old-style steam engines will take modern-day tourists on a trip through time, rumbling through working orange groves, stopping in historic old downtowns of Ventura County and dropping millions of tourist dollars on the local economy along the way.

Shoppers and tourists, ferried by the slow-moving railroad cars winding through the Santa Clara River Valley, might meander through refurbished downtowns in Fillmore, Santa Paula and Ventura. Or so goes the scenario under design by county transportation planners.

“It really does sound terrific,” said Bill Clawson, who heads the Ventura Visitors and Convention Bureau. “There is a very high day-use factor here and we have millions of people living within an hour of us.”

The $8.5-million agreement to purchase the 32-mile Santa Clara River Valley railroad corridor culminated three years of work by tourism and transit planners in the three historic cities when city and county officials signed final papers late last month.

Federal transit funds covered the lion’s share of the cost, about $7.5 million. But the cities of Ventura and Santa Paula each contributed $500,000 in exchange for rights-of-way privileges inside their city limits. Fillmore had already purchased a downtown right of way.

In addition to the Santa Clara River corridor, Ventura also received title to five miles of track from the county fairgrounds north along California 33 to Foster Park, where a bike and horse path is planned.

Escrow closed two weeks ago on the 100-foot-wide railway corridor that stretches from the Montalvo area east of Ventura to Santa Paula, Fillmore and beyond Piru.

“That was the most important day of our life,” said Stan Garner, a partner in Short Line Enterprises, which has operated the Movie Train between Piru, Fillmore and Santa Paula for 28 years.

Dubbed the “Movie Train” because the company uses trains that have been used in numerous films and television shows, the carriages offer dinner and weekend trips between Piru and Santa Paula.

“We want to grow,” Garner said. “We cannot grow faster than the clientele will allow, but we are absolutely interested in expanding this operation across the full expanse of the valley.”

In 1887, the Southern Pacific Transportation Co. built the track from Santa Barbara to Saugus in north Los Angeles County. At the time, the line connected an oil-bustling Santa Barbara to the then-primary north-south railroad running inland between San Francisco and Los Angeles.

But within 20 years, the railroad opened a new coastal line running generally along the boundaries of the present-day Ventura Freeway. After 1907, the track between Saugus and Montalvo was less used and less maintained than most other railway lines.

These days, the barely passable track between Montalvo and Santa Paula is used by just one or two freight trains a week, hauling products to and from the Weyerhaeuser Co. plant in Santa Paula.

But investors are betting that the allure of old-time steam locomotives will be a natural tourist attraction for some of the 10 million people who live within 60 miles of Fillmore. They’re also hoping that freight traffic will improve between Ventura and Santa Paula.

“We want people to enjoy their countryside,” said Garner, the Short Line partner. “You’re going through parts of orange groves that you don’t see from the highway.

“That’s what we’re really selling: seeing Southern California the way it used to be,” he said.

The Ventura County Transportation Commission adopted a study almost three years ago that called for the eventual purchase of the railway lines between Montalvo and Piru.

Analysts said then that the tracks could provide the foundation for a healthy tourism trade throughout the county, as well as generate revenue from the smattering of freight trains that still use portions of the line.

Since then, county and city planners have been building strategies and funding plans aimed at launching passenger rail service from Ventura to the north Los Angeles County communities of Santa Clarita and Newhall, where thousands of new homes are planned in coming years.

“In the long-term future out there, there will be a demand for passenger rail service,” said Chris Stephens, manager of planning and highway programs for the Ventura County Transportation Commission. “We’ve done analyses and studies that indicate that.”

Trails also are planned along the train tracks, where hikers and bicyclists can roam the Santa Clara River Valley from Piru to Ventura. Horses, however, would not be welcome on the trails.

“Horses and trains don’t mix, but with a fence, people and trains can mix,” Stephens said.

The close of escrow with the Transit Commission and the Southern Pacific Transportation Co. coincides with aggressive redevelopment plans in each of the three cities served by the 108-year-old railway lines.

Fillmore plans to start construction next month on its new City Hall, a sprawling center planned on 13 acres that will also house a railroad station, shops, restaurants and central park.

“The attraction of having a steam locomotive run through Ventura County is going to be unbelievable,” Fillmore Councilman Roger Campbell said. “There’s nothing more exciting than a steam locomotive.”

Construction of the new Fillmore City Hall, the centerpiece of the 13-acre railroad property, will begin next month.

Likewise, downtown Santa Paula is in the midst of a regeneration. City officials hope to establish the community of 25,000 residents as a destination for tourists.

Restorations at the historic railroad depot in Santa Paula will complement renovations throughout downtown aimed at luring Hollywood filmmakers and tourists from outside Ventura County.

“Santa Paula is one of these dying downtowns, losing trade to all of the malls,” said Mayor Al Urias, who voted to invest $500,000 of city funds on a portion of the right of way.

“It’ll be five or six years before we realize the cash back,” Urias said. “But in the meantime, the spurt in business activity will benefit everyone.”

Like elected officials in Fillmore and Ventura, Urias is looking for ways to boost the local economy. Bringing in trainloads of weekend tourists would be a good start.

“We’re trying to build up part of our community with more downtown activities,” he said. “As people come in and spend more money, the sales tax revenue goes up.”

City engineer Norm Wilkinson said conceptual plans already have been approved for Santa Paula’s commercial core. They include new sidewalks, landscaping and a long railroad platform along the depot.

“When you’ve got the tourist trains running in and out on weekends, and the passengers have a couple of hours to wander around, you try to create a pedestrian-friendly atmosphere and get more people downtown,” he said.

Although any passenger rail service between Santa Paula and Ventura is several years away, freight operations could increase as soon as some repairs are made to the tracks.

Under the deal between Southern Pacific and the Transportation Commission, for the next two years the railroad will keep the $400,000 in annual revenues it earns on freights running between Montalvo and Santa Paula, Stephens said.

The agency has applied for a $300,000 state grant to make initial repairs to accommodate more commercial freight transports, and is looking for other ways to fund major improvements.

“If the reliability on that stretch of track can be improved, freight customers will materialize,” Stephens said. “It’s a real obvious way to transport agricultural products, sand and gravel, and any number of things.”

With additional upgrades to the 32-mile section of track, higher-speed commuter trains could shuttle thousands of people a day from Ventura to Saugus or the north San Fernando Valley. But that would cost tens of millions of dollars, according to studies, and planners as yet have no source of funding.

City and county planners also have begun work on a master plan for the entire corridor, a blueprint and wish list for what transit officials would like to see along the tracks in the future.

One day, they hope to be as successful as the Skunk Train that runs between Willits and Ft. Bragg in redwood-rich Mendocino County, an attraction that tourism officials there say put them on the destination map.

“It’s our No. 1 attraction on the coast,” said Cammie Conlon, marketing director for the Fort Bragg-Mendocino Coast Chamber of Commerce.

“Every day it brings hundreds of people in to have lunch or to shop,” she said. “We answer more questions about the Skunk Train from visitors to our office than anything else.”