A lone platform stands at the Surf Beach Train Station, where crashing waves often provide the only sound.
It wasn’t always so lonely here. Lompoc once had two train stations, said Lompoc Museum’s Dee Frasher: “We bemoan the fact that both our beautiful stations were torn down. Now we just have the platform at Surf Beach that commuters can take and go. It’s kind of a shame.”
Maybe it was a bit of that local nostalgia that helped forge the idea for the Lompoc Museum’s latest exhibition, “All Aboard: America’s Romance with Railroading.”
The exhibit will include a working model railroad, vintage model train cars and structures, railroad memorabilia, and historic photographs. Since trains also seem to have a special association with Christmas, the exhibit will create a little holiday magic because the exhibit will run through the holidays.
Visitors will explore 150 years of train history, learning how locomotives represent adventure and danger to the American psyche, from model railroading as a hobby to the popularity of toy trains that waned as train travel declined.
“Trains are one of those things there’s not enough of,” Frasher said. “Everybody loves trains, and Americans are sort of returning to it as we reconsider other forms of transportation, like trains, once again.”
Frasher said the Lompoc Museum likes to hang shows that pertain to different aspects of Lompoc Valley, and trains have always had a part in the area’s history. The show really came together when railroader John Roskoski gave a talk at the museum a couple of months back, which brought about the idea of having a train exhibit at the museum.
“So we just started getting things from around the Valley, and it just started working out,” Frasher said.
Roskoski—along with fellow railroad enthusiasts Mike Marple, Ray Wilson, and Ken Kelly—agreed to set up the display. But the effort wasn’t as easy as he first expected; Roskoski said it would take more work than just laying down tracks on a few tables.
“It became a Herculean task,” he said. “It usually takes a lot more than a month to do, but we put it together.”
Roskoski said the train will be wired so a child can push a button to make it run. They built an 11-foot-wide-by-5-foot-deep board to hold as much O gage railroad as it could.
“O gage gives a nice feel because it’s big, the cars are big, the engine’s big,” Roskoski said. “It’s just a nice-sized layout.”
That layout will include a combination station 22, which Roskoski explained is what Lompoc and Surf stations used to be. That particular type of station included a large freight platform on one side, a passenger waiting area downstairs, and living quarters for the station agent and his family upstairs. At one time, travelers could find those types of stations up and down the coast. The stations in Lompoc and Surf were demolished and burned in 1971.
Lompoc once claimed an important relationship with the railroad industry. Trains hauled sugarbeets, mustard, and diatomaceous earth from the city. Many people aren’t aware there was once a tunnel north of Jalama, or that Lompoc residents once petitioned Southern Pacific to change the name of Surf to Lompoc Junction, or that the main line that hugs the coast almost went through Lompoc instead, Roskoski said.
Such historic tidbits will be presented in displays along with photos and train memorabilia on loan from various community members. Rounding out the exhibit will be train-related art from local artists. The display will hang on the walls around the model train—but it won’t be all steel and track. Roskoski’s wife Julie volunteered to create the scenery for the layout, something snowy with a holiday feel. And even though it doesn’t really snow in the area, the sign above the station will read “Lompoc.” Such artistic license is considered acceptable in model railroading.
“We’re not trying to model it specifically after Lompoc or Surf stations, other than it will have a sign that says Lompoc,” Roskoski said. “That’s the beauty of model railroading: It doesn’t have to be prototypical. It can be anything you want it to be, and what better fantasy world than that?”
Arts Editor Shelly Cone says artistic license is always OK when it makes someone smile. Contact her at scone@santamariasun.com.
This article appears in Oct 7-14, 2010.
