Fillmore and Western Railway, Heritage railway museum in Fillmore, United States.
Fillmore and Western Railway is a railway museum in the Santa Clara River Valley that displays vintage locomotives, passenger cars, and freight equipment collected over many years. The collection spans different eras and comes from various sources and operators.
Southern Pacific built the standard-gauge line through the Santa Clara River Valley in 1887 as part of its main line between San Francisco and Los Angeles. The 1904 Montalvo Cutoff through the Santa Susana Mountains diverted through traffic, and the route carried citrus from valley packing houses into the 1950s. The Ventura County Transportation Commission bought the branch from Southern Pacific in 1995; storm damage in 1979 had already severed its eastern end at Piru.
The railway served as a filming location for hundreds of movies and television shows, becoming deeply connected to how trains appeared on screen. Visitors can walk through the same spots where these scenes were shot.
The rail yard sits next to Fillmore's restored city hall in the downtown core, so the equipment can be reached on foot from the surrounding streets. The yard is narrow, with tracks feeding a turntable pit installed in 2007, which limits how close visitors can get to some locomotives. The line itself ran between Santa Paula and Piru along the Santa Clara River Valley, following the route of State Route 126.
The rail yard's 80-ton turntable bridge was built in 1906 and first installed in Capreol, Ontario; the Santa Clara River Valley Railroad Historical Society bought it from Canadian National and set it in a new pit on February 7, 2007. It turns locomotives and cars and opens access to tracks in the narrow yard.
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