The incident occurred at about 12:45 p.m., when the Santa Paula Police Department was notified that a white pickup truck was disabled on the railroad crossing, just north of the Santa Barbara Street Depot. The Fillmore & Western Railway tourist train was due to pull into the Depot at 1 p.m. for a quick visit to the city, but was still on its way when SPPD patrol units summoned a Santa Paula Fire Department engine to the scene. An ambulance even showed up… but there wasn’t much that could be done with the pickup that firmly wedged between the tracks.SPPD officers diverted the heavy Sunday southbound traffic on to Railroad Avenue and a tow truck was quickly summoned, but there was still a concern that the Fillmore & Western Railway train was coming down the tracks, so the SPFD engine took off to ward it off. “The train was due at about 1 p.m., so the disabled truck was between a rock and a hard place,” said SPFD Cpt. John Harber. “Fire Engine 81 went about a mile east along the railroad track and put a flare down,” the accepted warning to the train engineer that there is trouble ahead, before returning to the scene of the disabled truck.Second to the SPPD, which oversaw incident operations, the tow truck driver was the hero of this scenario – much like the handsome admirer who always came to the rescue of Nell just in the nick of time - and the scene cleared. The SPFD engine returned to the flare and extinguished it before the Fillmore & Western Railway train – which travels between Santa Paula and Fillmore at about 15 mph – came lumbering up to the Depot, the tourists probably unaware that they were featured players in an almost melodrama.
Quick-acting SPPD averts tourist train vs. truck at 10th Street RR crossing
February 22, 2006
Santa Paula Police Department
The character was usually called Nell, the hapless victim of the usually romantically spurned villain – almost always sporting a black cape and an elaborate handlebar mustache - who tied poor Nell to the tracks in the path of an oncoming train.
By Peggy KellySanta Paula TimesThe character was usually called Nell, the hapless victim of the usually romantically spurned villain – almost always sporting a black cape and an elaborate handlebar mustache - who tied poor Nell to the tracks in the path of an oncoming train.This staple of theatrical rescues – whether on stage or in silent film – came to life, albeit much less melodramatically, on Sunday when a pickup truck lost a tire while crossing the rough-riding 10th Street railroad tracks. And when a front tire came off, the southbound pickup was stuck… just minutes before the Fillmore & Western tourist train was due to arrive at the Santa Paula Depot.
