"But I'm ready to scrap the whole mess and walk away from it. I'm at an age where I just don't want to fight anymore."

http://www.vcstar.com/news/local-news/f ... e_90589532

The city says it wants a railroad to run and it brings economic benefits. It sounds to me like the issue is tax payers money being spent on someones privet railroad.

But in nearly every state in this country there is tax payer money being spent for the benefit of private companies all in the name of "job promotion." It really is no difference here.

yeh, ok, consider Conrail, a rescue of the older lines by the government, then eventually sold them to the current status of railroad operators... Norfolk Southern now own former NYC trackage into Chicago, if you now lumped all the past locomotives together and trainwatch at the NYC Depot in Elkhart you would see N&W J's, NKP Berks, Mohawks, K4's, Southern 2-8-2's,

it could be a test to see how the people actually value the line, "Liquidating" would actually mean its open for aquisition, well, Samual Insull practically bought the CLS&SB at liquidation price and gained a full electric railroad. We may not have an "Insull" to buy this line, instead, its possibly a public entity. So there in comes the rescue.

OK, so humor me for a minute here.

I've fought a lot of STB battles over the years, won a few, lost a few.

What I'm seeing out there is a lot of filings and responses for an emergency declaratory order in regard to the lease - all dated back in April of this year. Having worked with the STB before, know well that their definition of an 'emergency' is a little different that most. What I don't see out there is a decision. Was/is there one regarding the lease?

And if there isn't one, wouldn't an injunction against the county be in order as a stay tactic until the STB rules on the lease?

Doesn't surprise me a bit on the timing, we had one go over two years before the STB issued a decision, and by that time, the entire business plan had fallen apart as the shipper had to go elsewhere.

Dave, I can certainly sympathize. I've had a couple of these and it's pretty much of a war to see who can wear the other out financially before somebody yells 'uncle'.

I thought I read where the Filmore & Western also services freight customers?

If so, I thought the role of the STB was to provide some protection to the businesses that rely on rail service until it is determined how the loss of rail service affects them? How about any movie production contracts, would they be able to take legal action to delay a closure?

I understand the gov. agency/county owns the ROW and contracts F&W, so if they have an "at will" contact or lease it can be terminated at any time, but the STB should act to protect the rail-dependent businesses.

Jim

Apparently Union Pacific still provides freight service.

FWRy's president says several attempts to take over the freight service have failed:

http://www.fwry-blog.com/f--w-presidents-blog

Not all Rail-Trail groups are blood thirsty. We have one group in Michigan that worked with a RR and purchased an easement on the ROW for something like 10 miles to connect a bike path with an existing rail trail. Everybody won in the end (save for one upset farmer) and the trail users seem to enjoy when a train goes by while they are walking/biking. Maybe this needs to be proposed to more organizations. From what I was told, someone from the RR and road commission involved in planning and design made the proposition and all it took was a Hy-rail trip to sell them on it.

This turned up on my Facebook page.

https://www.facebook.com/notes/ryan-ste ... 1215905945

Cannot be accessed by non-Facebook holdouts like me. What does it say?

Dunno what the facebook page says, but the railroad has been given a stay until their appeal is settled. They're running on Saturdays and some Sundays.

http://www.fwry-blog.com/

For Facebook holdouts, here's the bit I saw; basically it's F&W's side of the story:



All Aboard: Standing With the Fillmore & Western Railway [Facebook page name]

July 22, 2014 at 12:01pm

If ever there was a week to rally support around the Fillmore & Western Railway, this would be the week. Below follows my interpretation of some of the events that have lead the F&W to become the most endangered railroad in Southern California.

On Friday, July 25th, the Ventura County Transportation Commission will hold its next public meeting at 9am in Camarillo City Hall.

Ventura County Transportation Commission Meeting - July 2014
07/25/2014 - 9:00am
Camarillo City Hall
601 Carmen Drive
Camarillo, CA

Since the commission's schedule goes "dark" for the month of August, this is THE critical meeting for supporters of the F&W, boosters of locally-owned tourist business, and advocates for local filming locations to attend and make your voices HEARD.

Share, Like, and Comment to boost the signal. Let me know in comments if you are planning to attend and please do encourage anyone else to join.

In the paragraphs that follow, I will attempt to explain a bit more about how the Fillmore & Western has found itself railroaded by its county landlord. Settle in, oh valiant reader; we've got a few miles to cover here...

As many of you have witnessed here on Facebook over the past three years or so, I have been channeling my enjoyment of all things on rails directly into volunteering (and, remarkably, even qualifying for an occasional paid slot as Conductor) on a "short-line" railroad called the Fillmore & Western Railway. The F&W utilizes tracks owned by the county of Ventura, over which they operate seasonal events, such as Thomas the Tank Engine, trains to the Pumpkin Patch and Tree Farm, and Santa Trains to the "North Pole", along with regular weekend excursion and dinner trains-- mostly between downtown Fillmore and Santa Paula --and conduct film, television, and commercial shoots at various on-line locations during the week. The county's transportation commission (known as the VCTC) has been embroiled in an escalating series of disputes with the family-owned railway operator for the last couple of years: First, over the matter of payments for maintenance performed by the F&W under contract; then over baseless concerns regarding issues deemed safe by two regulatory agencies; and, ultimately, choosing to evict the F&W's tourist operation rather than work toward an equitable compromise. At present, film and excursion trains continue to run; the latter thanks only to a last minute "stay" of the Court's eviction decision, pending the railway's appeal working its way through the legal system.

Frankly, the landscape has become quite bleak along the rail line through the orange groves of the Santa Clara River Valley. The Ventura County Transportation Commission seems to have made it their new mission to remove the Fillmore & Western Railway's operation and equipment from their tracks. Their principal appeal to the press has been that public funds should not be used to "subsidize" a private business. The reason the VCTC has a contract to pay the F&W, however, is fairly straightforward: Part of their purchase agreement with the Southern Pacific (original owners of the rail line) included a provision that the line would be maintained to an operating standard. Originally, this maintenance work went back (along with payment for such) to the SP; subsequently, the county renegotiated when they found a better arrangement could be achieved by establishing a long-term maintenance contract with the F&W.

Yet now, in just the past year or so, amid their increasingly dyspeptic relationship, the VCTC has chosen to levy the watchword "subsidy" when describing this arrangement with the F&W, as if attempting to churn up torrid images of fraud and abuse. In reality, the VCTC, like every other agency dealing in taxpayer dollars, approves a yearly budget with target numbers for the their assets' various expenses, including contracted maintenance. Paying a negotiated fee for service sounds like civilized capitalism to me; no more a subsidy than any other business transaction. Would the VCTC have us believe that the economics of their relationship with the F&W are so profoundly unique as to be classified a subsidy, while the rest of their other vendor contracts (such as Roadrunner Coach Lines) are simply engaging in the true spirit of American enterprise?

In another maneuver of gymnastic public policy dexterity, the VCTC contends that, since the only freight customer on the line merely requires track-access as far as Santa Paula, if they can shed the F&W, they can discontinue service on the remainder of the line from Santa Paula, through Fillmore, to Piru, and save the taxpayers money. Mind you, SP successor Union Pacific inherited full access to the line at zero charge, thanks to that original purchase arrangement. Who, again, is getting the subsidy?

VCTC's reasoning here is conspicuously flawed: First, the portion of the line that the VCTC would cast off is where the majority of the movie work and all of the excursion and event trains of the F&W take place. In spite of the deteriorating situation with the VCTC, the F&W has continued upkeep on this portion of the line at their own expense. The F&W has even offered to take the line off the VCTC's hands, but these discussions have gone nowhere fast. If the VCTC really wanted to do right by its mandate to serve the public interest, shouldn't they be actively investigating all potential revenue sources; especially those offers that might provide them a low-cost or cost-neutral means to maintain the county's transportation assets fully intact?

Second, while the VCTC has offered up a "Request For Proposals" call for a new maintenance agreement on the so-called "Santa Paula Segment" of the line, there is little in the way of reality to indicate that the major players in the area would be willing to do the work for substantially less than what the VCTC has been paying to maintain the full length of the line. Rumors abound (it is a chatty industry, this) that certain contenders won't even take on the liability without a massive and multi-year capital spend to upgrade the antiquated-but-servicable grade crossing signals left behind by the Southern Pacific (and kept alive by F&W technicians). So, is "cover less for the same cost" really the VCTC's way of doing right by the taxpayer?

The VCTC wasn't always so recalcitrant. Eight years ago, track crews of the F&W formally re-connected Piru, the easternmost town on the line. The first "revenue" passenger train to Piru in over 56 years pulled up to a neatly restored station structure during Railfest 2006, complete with clean and modern platform facilities, thanks, in part, to money tracked down by a forward-thinking incarnation of the VCTC. As passengers boarding and alighting in Fillmore and Santa Paula today may keenly notice, the lighting and smartly textured platform strips at each of the railroad's stations are hardly vintage; all thanks to a VCTC that once understood its obligation to chase down precious state and federal monies for transit improvements.

Today's VCTC seems more concerned with lobbing bogus potshots at the F&W than with getting in line for state and federal transportation improvement funds. The VCTC has even implied, in a Facebook post over Independence Day weekend, that their real concern is that "railway right-of-way conditions began to impact public safety". All well and good to put on a blog, but the California Public Utilities Commission and the Federal Railroad Administration-- the two agencies actually responsible for railroad safety in the State of California --have consistently acknowledged the safe and operable status of the line based on their formal inspections.

Which should leave the average reader to wonder: Where on earth is the VCTC getting its information?

Nearest I can tell, the VCTC isn't staffed up with experts in railroad operations or right-of-way maintenance supervisors; they don't have a rail-freight manager or, it seems, a real handle on the property management along the line. I can't even tell if the commissioners themselves have availed themselves of a visit to the rail line in recent years, or if they've formally invited Fillmore & Western's management to personally answer their concerns before the commission. Most of the information seems to flow through their Executive Director; a man who, by the recollection of those in the know, has casually refused to communicate directly with the F&W in nearly four years.

The members of the commission need to be made aware that they are taking the rail line down the wrong path. Clearly, this news is not going to take any form of report from their Executive Director. The commissioners need to see it through the eyes of the people who live and work with the railroad; the tourists who come to town because they enjoy riding the historic trains; the business owners who are trying to keep Fillmore and Santa Paula from slipping off the map; and the film and television producers who depend on the railroad to safely give them the perfect shot while filming local. The commissioners need to understand that this is the asset they are charged with protecting; not some vision being distorted through the lens of their staff or director, but the reality that is being lived every day in the communities along the line.

As much as we may lament decisions of decades past to rip up and discard rail lines across Southern California, we have in front of us this week an opportunity to do something NOW to keep from repeating the mistakes from which we in Los Angeles find ourselves today spending billions to recover and rebuild. Please consider spending a few hours to stand with me in support of the Fillmore & Western on Friday. Let's keep our railroad heritage alive!

Of course, with Facebook, you get following comments. Most are just people asking about attending a council meeting, but there's a wise guy in there (there always is):

Dawn Biro Ryan, I'll see if anyone can go.
Yesterday at 3:01pm · 1

Ryan Stern Thank you, Dawn!

Below is the VCTC's statement on the public comment period for the meeting. They will accept both written and verbal comments from those in attendance....See More

Commission Meeting - July 2014 | GoVentura
www.goventura.org
Yesterday at 3:19pm

Justine Turner Is there anything else we can do?
Yesterday at 5:26pm · 1

Dawn Biro Trisha Thompson, are you available Friday to just show up? My friend Ryan Stern is a sweetheart!
Yesterday at 5:39pm · 1

Ryan Stern Justine - First and foremost, encourage your friends to attend the VCTC meeting on Friday. The railway needs its supporters to show up en-masse to demonstrate their importance to the Commission. This is the their last public meeting until September!

Second, if you're into writing letters to editors, Ventura County Supervisors or other government officials, or even to the unions who have members that shoot on location, go for it! We need to make a FUSS that this historic train- and valuable filming location -is in jeopardy. And it needs to be a loud enough fuss such that someone in power finally calls up the VCTC and asks them what the hell they are doing to cause such chaos and would they please stop already!

Third, help me spread this post around! It's flagged public, so you should be able to link to it from anywhere, or just copy and paste the contents into your favorite email to all your closest friends and influential business moguls.

And finally, come ride the train while it is still running! Regular weekend excursion trips are every Saturday at noon.
23 hrs · 2

Joel Bingham We are not going away , VCTC is
7 hrs · 1

Andy Winderbaum What's wrong with these people?
3 mins

Andy Winderbaum Why do you care, anyway? They don't even pay you?
2 mins · 1

Andy Winderbaum Are there any cats on the railroad?
2 mins

Joel Bingham I worked there twice , got married. On the train there and would go back to work there if it stays running.
Just now