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Review of Coast Starlight

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  • Member since
    September 2003
  • 21,669 posts
Posted by Overmod on Tuesday, July 28, 2020 4:53 AM

Erik_Mag
Wonder how many people realize that Point Conception is much more west of Ventura than north.

Sheesh, I need to study more maps; I thought it was almost straight west.  And that from Malibu or Santa Barbara, along the coast...

All these years and the first thing that comes to mind with oil in that area is massive undersea leakage...

  • Member since
    January 2019
  • 1,686 posts
Posted by Erik_Mag on Tuesday, July 28, 2020 12:23 AM

I remember going on a 4th grade (Ladera Elementary in T.O.) field trip to the Union Oil site just NW of Ventura, remember the tank for the drilling mud, seeing the drill bits and coring bits as well as the Christmas trees on the well heads. Since this was 63-64, it must have been at least a couple of years after you saw NK.

Wonder how many people realize that Point Conception is much more west of Ventura than north.

  • Member since
    December 2001
  • 1,190 posts
Posted by mvlandsw on Monday, July 27, 2020 6:36 PM

On the tracks or on the service road beside the tracks?

  • Member since
    October 2006
  • 433 posts
Review of Coast Starlight
Posted by ccltrains on Monday, July 27, 2020 3:33 PM

I could not locate this enjoyable review but have a short story that will date me. I was working for Union Oil and living in Ventura.  One of our fields was at Point Conception.  This was a very desolate place with the SP coast line near by.  The wind always was blowing picking up sand and  all of our equipment was sand blasted to shiny steel on the windward side and still painted in the leaward side. Vandenberg base was a few miles north and when the AF was launching they would station monitoring equipment at our field site.  One time while visiting the field I drove a mile over the SP tracks to a small general store to get a meager lunch.  When I got to the tracks I had to wait on a slow moving Fairmont speeder.  There were several people on board who were closely inspecting the track.  After my "gourmet" lunch I was heading back to the field and had to wait until a passenger train passed.  The last car had an open vestible and Nikita Khrushchev was standing there enjoying the view. We waved to each other..an experience I will never forget.

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