Reward Offered After Tourist Train Vandalized

SANTA PAULA — Following two weekend window-smashings, one involving a rock and the other believed to be caused by someone shooting a BB gun, the owner of a tourist train that runs between Fillmore and Santa Paula is offering a $5,000 reward to help bring the culprits to justice.

On Sunday, someone on the south side of the railroad tracks near Ferris Drive, east of Santa Paula, shot at a 1929 Santa Fe train car belonging to the Fillmore & Western Railway, narrowly missing a crew member, according to owner Dave Wilkinson, 48.

The shooting took place while the train was going through an underpass on its way to Central Park in Fillmore, said conductor Jim Treloar, 60. There were 100 passengers aboard.

“We had just dropped off some people in Santa Paula. We left town and were on our way back to Fillmore when I heard a ping,” Treloar said.

The noise was something hitting a passenger car window. Treloar said the impact sent pieces of glass onto the head and neck of brakeman Glen Schmidt, who was seated in a chair in front of the window.

None of the passengers aboard the Sunday Scenic Limited were inside the car, and Schmidt was not injured, according to Treloar.

“It shot glass across the room,” said Treloar, who was seated across from Schmidt at the time. The projectile was not found.

After making a 45-minute stop to speak with sheriff’s deputies and interview people in the area where the shooting took place, Treloar started the two-engine train back up and headed toward Fillmore.

“There was a guy and his kid down in the underpass, but they didn’t see anything,” Treloar said.

On Saturday, someone threw a rock through the window of a dining car near Santa Paula, Wilkinson said. No one was injured.

The windows cost about $220 each, Wilkinson said.

“The replacement cost is nothing. What I’m deathly afraid of is someone throwing a rock or shooting something into one of the cars and hitting one of our passengers,” he said.

It is a federal offense to throw a rock or shoot at a train, Wilkinson said, and he hopes that the reward for the arrest and conviction of the suspects will persuade someone with useful information to come forward.

“We will, when we catch them, take this case to the highest level of prosecution we can,” Wilkinson said.

“The safety of our passengers is our No. 1 concern,” he added.

The Fillmore & Western Railway has been in operation since 1991 and has on occasion been the target of vandalism, Wilkinson said. Crew members said no such incidents have occurred in three months.