New Executive to Come Aboard Fillmore & Western Railway

David Wilkinson, president and chief executive of the Fillmore & Western Railway Co., is moving full steam ahead with his vintage-train operation.

Wilkinson has named longtime railroad executive Gene Pettus as the company’s new chief operating officer. The move comes as ridership on the Fillmore-to-Santa Paula tourist line has climbed 30% over the past two months and with greater increases expected as the train company prepares to expand its route, Wilkinson said.

Pettus, a 34-year veteran of the Santa Fe railroad company, will take over the day-to-day operation of the Fillmore train line July 1, allowing Wilkinson and business partner A.J. Farrar, director of the Santa Clara Valley Railroad Historical Society, to focus their efforts on marketing the railroad to tourists.

“It’s not a matter of want, it’s a matter of need,” said Wilkinson, who has run the train company since 1996 after operating it for the previous owners since 1990. “We’re just growing in size to where two people can’t run the operation. It takes three.”

Pettus will move from his home in Topeka, Kan., to join the railroad company. It’s a shift he initially was hesitant to make, Pettus said.

“I didn’t know much about the area,” he said. “What attracted me was it was a small railroad with vintage equipment, and the tourist side got my attention. I see all across the country more and more short lines going back and offering vintage rides. People just miss this.”

The Fillmore & Western Railway Co. serves about 33,000 passengers annually, running short dinner rides, wine-tasting events and other weekend jaunts between Fillmore and Santa Paula.

Wilkinson said he expects to increase the number of riders to about 80,000 by next year, through an extension of the line into Piru. The additional track would complete the 20-mile scenic route that has come to be known as the Heritage Valley.

“The railroad, I believe, will be the eventual backbone of the Heritage Valley, the main transportation link from town to town--and the Piru extension is expected to be completed sometime near year’s end,” Wilkinson said.

“The Heritage Valley is the last place in Southern California where you can find Southern California as it was in past history, with the towns of Santa Paula and Fillmore very much the same as when they were built, with a lot of very, very rich history,” he said. “You have that all in a 20-mile [stretch] and a train connecting it.”

Future railway plans call for an increase from Saturday and Sunday rides to daily service; a possible extension of the train line westward into Ventura and increased marketing to tour bus operations.

Wilkinson said the Fillmore & Western Railway system will increase from one train to two in the fall, thereby doubling trips from four to eight each weekend.

For Pettus, vintage train rides and the push for the tourism market is a refreshing change of pace. After years with the Santa Fe, which eventually merged into the Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railway, he said he looks forward to the opportunity to return to the small-scale railroad business.

“For me it’s going from a larger corporate railroad back to what I see the small-town community and railroad relationship to be,” he said. “Small communities were linked by railroads as a basic transportation mode for many, many years. This is a way of reminding people that this is an alternative mode of transportation.”