Monday, June 29, 2009
The circus is coming to town—but it will parade no live animals, and it will literally be a lot smaller and probably more colorful than you might expect. This circus is part of the annual Goleta Railroad Days—August 1 and 2 this summer—and it will take the shape of brightly painted miniature railroad cars holding model elephants, caged tigers, and a calliope. All come with sound effects and were lovingly handcrafted by rail fan Ted Cheesman over the past 20 years.
You won’t be able to sit on these circus cars, but for $1 you can be part of their train. Other rideable miniature cars will be coupled to a powerful little diesel engine each morning and afternoon of Railroad Days, and chug around the South Coast Railroad Museum’s one-sixth-mile-long Westside Figure-8 track. A second locomotive will pull passenger duty on the one-third-mile Centennial Loop, beginning at 11 a.m., all weekend.
Admission is recession-era affordable—only $2 for a wristband that opens most doors. There’s an additional charge for the steam trains ($2) loaned to the museum for the event, and for the handcar ride ($1) as well as the circus train.
The engineer- and conductor-operated train rides are a main attraction of the museum’s signature summer event, but kids of all ages also tend to enjoy the cunningly detailed working model train exhibits. A model circus train, the K and C Famous Family Circus, will again be on display this year thanks to Ken and Carolyn Weber.
While these exhibits all bow to the past, there also is a nod to the future: a video (and possibly more) of a model transport powered by magnetic levitation that never touches a rail. Called the Maglev train, it is presented by Goleta-based LaunchPoint Technologies.
Other Railroad Days attractions include guided tours of the original, restored, 1901 Goleta Depot, a collection of steam-driven whistles and other devices, handcar rides, children’s story times, food, drink, and live music—the Dixieland Daddies on Saturday and on Sunday a barbershop quartet named Walk n’ Roll. A sale of railroad-themed toys, books, model rail supplies, and other items (aka “unclaimed freight and baggage”) is planned for both days.
It is a major undertaking, with scores of volunteers (many with specialized training, like the engineers and conductors) interacting with the public, and helping to keep the museum a vital center of community life. Contributors, such as Cheesman, especially enjoy the give-and-take with visitors. “The crowd is half the fun,” he says. “I love it.”
His sentiments are shared by other volunteers and the professional staff. “It’s very rewarding,” observes Gary Coombs, director of the railroad museum. “It’s like being on stage or in a parade. You’re giving people a good time, which is important, and they’re almost uniformly in a good mood.” Plus, if interested, they can learn about local history, the culture of railroading, transportation issues, and other topics.
If they cannot visit during this or the half-dozen other special events spread over the calendar year, local residents can always drop by 300 North Los Carneros Road in Goleta between 1 and 4 p.m. Wednesday through Sunday. Generous donors and sponsors underwrite the cost of train rides, with total free ride days in 2009 expected to reach 81.
The successor to the museum’s Steaming Days of Summer, Goleta Railroad Days is one of many ways the staff, volunteers, and board of trustees have created a center for community activities while preserving an important part of the Goleta Valley’s heritage. It began in 1981 when a small, dedicated band of volunteers, including Coombs and assistant museum director Phyllis Olsen, saved the former Southern Pacific depot from oblivion and moved it across the 101 highway to its present location in the Los Carneros park district.
Years of restoration, educational and fundraising activities, and recruiting members ensued under Coombs, Olsen, the late George Adams, and a steadfast board of trustees. And people came—some 12,000 to 18,000 a year, Coombs estimates. Olsen observes that the next generation of families is introducing their kids to the depot. “We are even seeing out-of-state visitors,” she says.
But they are also “feeling the big pinch,” as Coombs describes the recession’s effect on the railroad museum’s resources, particularly with the grant-making organizations. For now, he hopes his 30-year-old labor of love will outlast the recession and that he will improve even more the exhibits’ quality and the museum’s service to its visitors. With public support, the Little Museum That Could today continues to chug toward its goal of accreditation from the American Association of Museums.