July 26, 2009 "Views from the Train Window" And other stuff in Santa Barbara... Grover Beach, CA SMVRR Caboose #210 sits at the Guadalupe train station. Just across the street from the Guadalupe station sits this old Southern Pacific car. Lompoc/Surf station. Vandenberg Air Force Base's harbor. They do bring booster segments in this way now and then. #774 pulls away just after I got off at Santa Barbara. The loco is pushing. Two-point landing. We don't often get down to this end of the harbor. There's a maritime museum, a few shops and restaurants, and access to the walk along the breakwater. From my angle, you'd swear they were giong to hit. But no, they cleared (probably by a long shot). I'd never been to the other side of this entrance to the Santa Barbara train station. The northbound Starlight crosses Montecito street just west of the station. The reason we were on Montecito is The Brewhouse. The menu is huge, the beers interesting, and a peanut butter cream pie to die for. The habanero beer is by far the most outrageous, and if you're into "hot", you'll love it. At the skate park along the beach. This is the merry-go-round at Chase Palm Park, on the inland side of the street that runs along the beach. The next several pictures were taken in this park. Quilt patterns and/or colors? #792 heads south through this crossing south of the station. The rear end of southbound #792. Northbound #775 arrives at Santa Barbara - my ride home. At right along the street is The Brewhouse as seen from the train. This and the remaining pictures are all about #775 striking and killing a trespasser along the tracks. News reports read later indicate he was crossing the tracks to get from his car to the beach. It happened just south of Refugio Beach about 6pm. This surfer was coming in to see what happened... Having felt a train "go into emergency" once before (I was on a Starlight that took the bumper off a pickup truck near Salinas a little while ago), I knew immediately that we were coming to an emergency halt. The first announcement suggested someone was too close to the tracks and they were checking it out. The next thing I saw was 2 or 3 of the train crew walking along the train and the service road looking for something. They were joined in the search by about 10 beach goers. Their attention soon focused on an area just behind the train about a car length from where the train had stopped. Fire and paramedic crews arrived within minutes, and soon it became clear they had found the person. It also was pretty clear to me that the person was dead as there was never any "high level of activity" trying to save him. There was another announcement that the paramedics had arrived. If I recall correctly, this announcement indicated "we will be here a while". They never said the person was dead, but they did talk about needing to complete an investigation. I don't think they ever used the word coroner, either. People came up from the beach and joined the train crew hunting for someone the engineer thought was hit. The train was along an embackment that lead down to a bike trail/service road. The beach was another 40+ feet below that road. They found the body about halfway down the embackment to the service road. It took everyone a while to find him because he ended up in rather thick scrub. The body is just beyond these men and down hill a little. The emergency vehicles parked along southbound highway 101. By now the body had been lowered to the service road and everyone was waiting for the coroner. The guy on the right with the camera was the fire department's photographer. The coroner arrived about 7:45pm, had a brief chat with an officer (Highway Patrol, I think), loaded the body in his van, and left. We were rolling again about 8pm, just under 2 hours after the ordeal started.