The first step in preparing the museum for the Candy Cane Train and other holiday activities is to decorate the buildings and property. This year, hundreds of ornaments were skillfully attached to the branches of trees and shrubs around the grounds by Hollanda Harwin, sons Evan and Connor, and her mother, Yollanda Leon. UCSB...
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The museum has a new intern for UCSB’s spring quarter 2013. Mariem Lambert is a senior majoring in anthropology. Her minor is American Indian and Indigenous Studies. After she graduates in 2014, she hopes to pursue a career in fieldwork or at a museum. Mariem grew up in the Bay Area and calls San...
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The Museum’s engine No. 1316 is a 1/8-size reproduction of an actual Southern Pacific diesel locomotive. The Southern Pacific purchased ten of these 1,000 horsepower engines from General Motors, all in 1941. They were built at GM’s Electro-Motive Division plant in La Grange, Illinois. Assigned numbers 1310 through 1319, these were among the first...
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Rick Reeves, one of the museum’s newest volunteers, completed his engineer training and hauled his first passengers behind Engine No. 1316 on Saturday, Jan. 26. Rick has been serving as a conductor on the Goleta Short Line for several months. An accomplished singer and guitarist, Rick has also performed for passengers aboard the museum’s...
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The Goleta Short Line turntable has received a major upgrade, thanks to the efforts of John Green and the other volunteers who spend most of their Wednesday mornings working on projects around the museum. The upgrade included the installation of a new mechanism that locks the turntable in line with the corresponding lead track....
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The museum’s new intern for the Winter 2013 Quarter is Shuyan Dong. The 20-year-old UCSB freshman is from Hang Zhou, China. Her major is Actuarial Science. As of this writing, Shuyan has been in the U.S. for less than four months. She has been learning English in school back home since she was 9...
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The South Coast Railroad Museum lost a longtime friend on Dec. 19, 2012, with the passing of James Higman. Jim was perhaps best known around the museum for the tabletop display of miniature stationary steam engines and steam-driven tools and devices that he helped organize for museum events, including a long string of Depot...
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You couldn’t ask for a better volunteer than Ben Torres. He helps with grounds care and has supervised our County SWAP workers on many occasions. Ben is the husband of another museum volunteer and longtime Trails & Rails guide, Bev Torres....
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With rare exceptions, Wednesday mornings at the railroad museum are a time when a group of men gathers there to tackle projects and problems in need of attention. The group’s primary focus has always been the Goleta Short Line miniature railroad. In fact, the group can be traced back to 2006, when Gene Allen...
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Yegal Khouban is a Fall 2010 intern at the South Coast Railroad Museum. “Iggy” is a U.C.S.B. student majoring in anthropology. He has been helping supervise our weekend SWAP workers and is also staffing the Goleta Short Line trains. Yegal completed his engineer training on Oct. 22. On that busy free-ride day, his trains...
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