Steamed? Of Course

COSTA MESA — For the last decade, the Mackerel Flats and Goat Hill Junction Railroad has rumbled through Fairview Regional Park, bringing free rides and joy to thousands of Orange County children.

But now a proposal to expand the nearby Costa Mesa Golf and Country Club onto the railroad park threatens to silence the whistles of the model trains.

Members of the Orange County Model Engineers club, who run the railroad, are gearing up to defeat the plan, saying it would wipe out what has become a favorite attraction for train buffs and local children.

“We’re really steamed about this plan, pun intended,” said Robert Donnelly, a founding member of the 100-member group. “The city and our mayor are on the wrong track. If they go ahead with their plan, we’re finished.”

Donnelly and club members learned earlier this month that a private firm running the city’s two 18-hole golf courses recently proposed carving out an additional nine-hole course on land occupied by the railroad. The project would swallow up half of the 210-acre Fairview Regional Park on Placentia Avenue.

Under a 25-year lease signed in 1988, the city can kick the trains out of the park as long as officials give the club 30 days’ notice.

That possibility arose recently when Mayor Peter F. Buffa revealed that a third golf course would bring in more than $200,000 a year in cash for the city. That money, Buffa said, could be used to pay for long-awaited park projects, including a trail system, and to restore vernal pools and wetlands.

The railroad brings in no revenue for the city but is a steady source of joy to children and their parents.

Buffa said the city could relocate the railroad, a suggestion club members say is not practical.

“Moving the railroad is not a pleasant prospect,” said Buffa, who is quick to note that he was one of the council members who wooed the model engineers to locate their tracks here in the first place. “It would be a shame if it closed because it’s a community asset. But how are we going to pay for the improvements to the rest of the park? We’ll run the risk of having a wonderful park plan but no way to pay for it.”

Buffa said moving the model railroad is not a done deal. Council members plan to vote on the issue June 2.

At least one council member, Joe Erickson, said he will reject the proposal.

“Money can’t buy everything,” said Erickson, whose three children, ages 11, 12 and 14, are fans of the model railroad. “If I vote against the railroad, my kids will be very sad. I think we have a responsibility to preserve open space for children in our city.”

Richard Mehren, a local dentist and chairman of Fairview Regional Park’s citizen advisory committee, said he was shocked to hear about the proposed golf course.

“We didn’t get involved for the land to be turned over to a golf course,” said Mehren, adding that his committee found the model railroad compatible with other plans for the park. “This is an 11th-hour decision that does not give too much respect to 13 years of [park] planning.”

Mehren, the model engineers and others want to derail the golf course proposal.

Last weekend, model engineers got most of the 3,500 passengers who took advantage of the club’s monthly free rides to sign petitions decrying the potential extinction of the railroad. Donnelly said he has also called the local Sierra and Audubon clubs, warning that a golf course would be harmful to the flora and abundant species of birds, rabbits and other wildlife that are sometimes seen frolicking on the railroad’s miniature tracks.

Apart from the wildlife, Donnelly said he is worried about the model engineers who have invested as much as $500,000 in the railroad, which has much of the same equipment that might be found in a full-size station.

The club members built Goat Hill--one of the largest layouts of its kind in Southern California--from castoff materials. Platforms and walkways were cast with concrete left over from the John Wayne Airport expansion. Railroad ties were solicited from local lumber yards, and water tanks for the station’s tower came from American Airlines. The park benches came from Disneyland, where Donnelly worked as a security officer.

During the last decade, the model railroad has grown from 700 feet to 15,000 feet of track laid 7 1/2 inches apart. The 50 steam, gasoline and diesel powered engines owned by the club and its members chug along at about 6 mph, sounding their whistles when they cross the 93-foot trestle.

Passenger cars that typically seat three to five people are used to give free rides to the public every third weekend. Sometimes, club members host community fund-raisers and even birthday parties for children who wish to see and hear the boom-chatta, boom-chatta leap out of “The Little Engine That Could.”

Donnelly said the club members--a multifarious team of machinists, dentists and children, among others--use their outfit to tell stories about the lore of the railroad and the nation’s railroad heritage.

“We try to correct the misperception that the West was settled by 747s,” Donnelly said.

For some of them, pursuing their hobby is costly. Some steam engines, built to one-eighth the size of a regular engine, cost as much as $80,000, the price of two Lexuses.

But Bob Fackiner, 76, who owns two steam engines and is building a third, said the cost is well worth it. That is why he is fighting to ensure that the Goat Hill Railroad survives.

“Just watching the smiles on the children’s faces when they get on and off the train is enough,” Fackiner said. “Kids that age love trains. They can’t play golf.”