Saugus, California: Southern Pacific Line Railroad Train Derailment and Robbery 1929

Further reading The Southern Pacific in Los Angeles, 1873-1996 https://amzn.to/3GaFAm3 Southern Pacific in California https://amzn.to/3HPX9s8 The Southern Pacific: 1901-1985 https://amzn.to/3TxPz7U Southern Pacific Calendar 2025 https://amzn.to/4ndZ7To The most spectacular local train robbery occurred during the early evening of Nov. 10, 1929. A massive three-barreled steam locomotive of the 5000 series pulled into the Saugus station, Fireman Robert Fowler took on water. Richard Ball was the engineer for the big 4-10-2. At 7:40 pm he slowly released the air brakes and eased the throttle open, gently taking the slack from the Limited so as not to awaken any of the sleeping passengers. Fowler increased his firing rate to match the blasting exhaust of the accelerating engine and checked the pulsating needle of his feedwater heater pump gauge, making sure that he was supplying the increasing demand for boiler water. As he overfired, the fire-door rumbled, and the damper levers jumped in their retainers but soon settled down as the exhaust smoothed out with increased speed. Although it was one of the many pauses on the scenic run north to Portland Oregon and Seattle, the importance of this daily occurrence was soon to be eclipsed by an avalanche of sensational newspaper stories. Engine 5042, train 59 with its 12-passenger car train approached the Bouquet Junction making a slow right turn now on an easterly heading as Engineer Ball picked up speed heading towards Soledad Canyon. Suddenly the engine began to lurch violently back and forth. Then, after chewing up 600 yards of track, it crashed over on its side as a torrent of flaming red sparks that flew from spinning drivers. Engineer Ball barely escaped being scalded to death as his steamer slid to a halt behind the Baker Ranch Rodeo Stadium, later known as the Saugus Speedway. Somehow the passenger cars remained upright, although there was total panic aboard. Into this bedlam, from out of the clear night, stepped a 5-foot-6-inch man with an air of authority. Quickly he calmed the hysterical women and nervous men, got them back on the Pullmans, and, as soon as everyone settled down, robbed them of all their valuables at gun point with a .38-caliber revolver. He then vanished into the inky darkness. Next on the scene was Deputy Sheriff Jack Pember, who identified the gunman as Thomas E. Vernon, an itinerant cowboy who liked to call himself "Buffalo" Tom [in honor of William F. "Buffalo Bill" Cody]. Pember found that Vernon had broken into the Saugus Yard tool shed, lifting a wrench and spike puller. He then yanked the bolts that held the rails together, settling down in the bushes to see what would develop. After the robbery, which only netted $300, "Buffalo" Tom walked over the low ridge to Wood's Garage, where he hitched a ride down to L.A. with one Thomas Firth of Burbank. Vernon claimed that his nonexistent daughter was injured in a train wreck and paid Firth five dollars for a lift to the Children's Hospital. Two weeks later he derailed another train near Cheyenne, Wyoming, and was plotting a third when he was captured at Pawnee, Oklahoma.