And working in the middle on Friday were anxious city and railroad officials, knowing that some recently dug-up railroad tracks had to be re-laid across Central Avenue in the heart of the city pronto, or train service for this weekend’s Railfest would be derailed.
‘We’re going to make it’
“We promised to the community that we would get this street open for key festivals, and get these tracks open by Railfest, and we’re going to make it,” said Deputy City Manager Bill Bartels as he watched the welders finish.
Despite some last-minute delays, the track-layers finished their work just in time, pavers moved in, and one lane of Central Avenue and the tracks were reopened, allowing one of the Fillmore & Western Railway’s two EMD F-7 diesel engines to clang across the new crossing just before 2 p.m. Friday.
That new turntable is the undisputed star of this year’s Railfest, the 12th annual festival of all things railroad in Santa Paula, Piru and Fillmore. It starts today and continues Sunday.
For nine years, volunteers with the Santa Clara River Valley Railroad Historical Society have been prepping the turntable so that engines can turn around without making a 50-mile round trip to Ventura, where they can be maneuvered on the trio of switches at the Montalvo Metrolink station.
More than 10 years ago, rail officials spotted the turntable unused at a Canadian Northern yard in Ontario.
The 85-ton structure was shipped to Fillmore by rail nine years ago, and the society’s volunteers have been raising money and getting its custom-built pit ready in the meantime.
Friday afternoon, Fillmore & Western workers took advantage of the new turntable, flipping around a 50-year-old engine for its camera call next week.
“The engine was facing this’ way for a Tim Allen movie last week, and the McDonald’s people want it facing that’ way for their commercial next week,” said engineer Ray Marquecho.
Fillmore & Western, a company that runs tourist excursions and movie shoots, is next to the society’s rail yard in downtown Fillmore, and the company and society volunteers work together on Railfest and other projects.
Read it here: Fillmore to present new railroad turntable at Railfest