Volunteers Really ‘Make A Difference’

The freight dock at the Saugus Train Station Museum was completely rebuilt recently, thanks to the efforts of City volunteers and a handful of hard-working Historical Society volunteers who – for the first time – built the dock to Southern Pacific standards.
The project started on Make A Difference Day, October 25. The proposed project: a team of teenage volunteers would pull the old screws and popped nails from the decking and we’d screw the boards back down properly. It turned into a learning experience, with volunteer Guy Horanberg introducing the kids to power tools.
During the work party, Tim Burkhart, retired VP of Maintenance and Construction for Six Flags Theme Parks, was walking his dog through the park. He stopped and looked at the deck boards that had been pulled up. Installed in 1999-2000, they had outlived their lifespan and needed replacement. Before he left, he volunteered to work with Leon Worden, the site project manager, to restore the dock.
No bodies were found under the dock, but some SP relics turned up: four original threshold plates dating to the depot’s 1888 construction and seven old grates for a French drain. The grates will be used when the area between the depot and the tracks is hard surfaced soon.
During the construction, a problem that had been an issue for the last 45 years was considered and addressed: the huge gap under the dock. Wildfires have a history of coming at the train station from the southwest, and embers could easily blow in under the building and destroy it. The History Center’s resident SP historian Mike Jarel pointed out that there’s a right way to do the siding and 100 wrong ways.
The team turned to the book “Southern Pacific Lines Standard-Design Depots” by Henry Bender for photos of SP common standard freight docks and consulted renowned architectural historian Jean-Guy Dube’s renderings of the station. With his help, they were able to adapt the common standards to our situation. The dock was completed on November 6.
Come see our new dock and visit the Saugus Train Station Museum on Saturdays from 1 to 4 pm. Learn more about the Santa Clarita History Center at our website, www.scvhs.org.