WEST SACRAMENTO, Calif. – Officials in Fillmore, Calif., have asked short line operator Sierra Northern Railway to leave the city-owned railroad yard, the railroad announced on June 1.
The move, effective immediately, affects the railroad’s Ventura Division, the former Fillmore & Western.
“It is unfortunate that the city does not want to continue to work with us as this means a loss of excursion operations for the residents of Fillmore who for so many years grew up around the trains,” Matthew Blackburn, Sierra Northern Ventura Division manager, said in a statement.
The Sierra Northern Railway, Ventura Division operates 30 miles of railroad right-of-way owned by the Ventura County Transportation Commission. Last year Sierra Northern was awarded a 35-year lease on the former Southern Pacific route linking Piru and Montalvo, Calif. The company and its predecessors have hosted a variety of excursions, freight operations, and filming locations for dozens of movie and television productions.
Sierra Northern is pursuing relocation to another online community. Meanwhile, normal Sierra Northern Ventura Division business will continue as usual, the railroad says.
The company anticipates the reintroduction of excursion trains and railbike adventures originating from a new facility “in the near future.”
Fillmore & Western shut down last June. Sierra Northern’s Ventura Division began operations in January and acquired the majority of the Fillmore & Western’s equipment, including a pair of EMD F7As, an EMD GP35, 2-8-0 No. 14, and about two dozen passenger, freight, and maintenance-of-way cars.
The rights railroads typically have may come from being there first, rather than being a common carrier, which this railroad may not be.
The existing company did not take over ownership of the old railroad, but to save money just bought the assets. The rights the old company had would not transfer to a new company buying the assets.
The railroad knew that the city owned the railyard, so why did they act like entitled buttheads about the city owned property? If I were the city I would feel like if they treat us this way at the beginning of business relationship, how will they treat us later. I’d also be concerned about setting a precedent.
Railroaders live in a world of their own, but that doesn’t mean they get to ignore everyone else. The railroad trashed what could have been a beautiful and beneficial for both sides friendship.
Furthermore, it should be the cities responsibility to look up the relevant Federal regulations that govern the common carrier obligations of freight railroads, not the railroads job to provide the information to them. Of course, all Sierra Northern would’ve needed to do was provide the CFR number and let the city manager comb through the entire document to find the relevant portions, since that’s what he asked for, that’s all he would get from me. No part, no section, no subsection just the entire CFR so he could look through it at his leisure.
How odd…I’ve been around fresh, brand new creosote ties…and noticed hardly any obnoxious odor. I think those residents are just making excuses, especially for a natural product that is produced from a plant…maybe I should be some property there and plant a bunch of creosote bushes, and occasionally burn them in my fireplace…let us see them complain about that!
That is a shame. There’s about 30 years of rail labor and love that went into the operations in Fillmore, some from the railroad and some from the City. It’s unfortunate that the City and Sierra Northern couldn’t come to an operations agreement.
See
https://www.fillmoreca.com/home/showpublisheddocument/7078/637897783539530000
Thanks for posting this link. I surveyed the City of Fillmore website and found nothing, so it must have gone up sometime after I looked.
I thought it was about diesel fumes and traffic, but here its about creosote rail ties.
Sierra Northern could have asserted their rights, but the fact that they didn’t respond means they don’t want to deal with city residents.
So I guess the railroad took the Colonel Jessup approach and said “I run my railroad how I run my railroad” and did a Code Red on The City of Fillmore.
Yes, it does beg the question as to why.
Yes, there’s half a story missing here What’s the city’s position?
It’s the neighborhood around the station in Fillmore. People come for the excursions and parking is at a premium. It also means that there are a couple of engines idling nearby and depending which way the wind blows, someone will smell the diesel fumes.
Sierra did get a $4M grant to go all hydrogen next year so they can retire the diesels.
There is no press on this announcement, so I assume SW emailed the editors when they got the word.
Can STB get involved since this action may affect freight service?
Am I imagining things, or is the Fillmore city government not particularly friendly to rail?