TRAVEL TALES : RAILROAD HISTORY LIVES AT DEPOT.

Byline: Susanne Hopkins Daily News Travel Editor

Looking for a getaway that's right on track? The old Southern Pacific caboose marks the spot.

Sitting on a spur of track in front of an imposing Victorian train depot at Lake Los Carneros County Park in Goleta, the caboose is one of the highlights of the South Coast Railroad Museum.

A repository of railroad memorabilia, the museum is located about seven miles north of Santa Barbara off the 101 Freeway - far enough from the Valley to make you feel as though you've been somewhere, yet close enough to make it home for the night.

Don't mistake this for a place of dusty old artifacts. There's a miniature train ride here, train movies to view, even an old handcar - once used to transport railroad workers and equipment along the rails - to pump up and down a short stretch of track.

``We try as much as possible to keep the building alive and doing the things it was meant for,'' said director Gary B. Coombs, noting that visitors can even purchase Amtrak tickets at the museum (though they must depart from a working Amtrak station).

The museum is housed in the restored Goleta Depot, which was built in 1901, went into service in 1902 and ceased operation about 1973. It is, said Coombs, ``a simple Victorian, but very elegant,'' and, unlike many depots of its day, sports a second story, where station agents and their families lived. The living quarters are restored, but are only open to the public on special occasions (including Depot Day Sept. 28).

Blast from the past

The depot offers a look at rural railroads that once tied small communities together, said Phyllis Olsen, the museum's assistant director.

``They (the depots) used to be every 10 or 15 miles up and down the coast,'' she said, adding that farmers and ranchers used the trains on the rural railroads to transport goods.

When they fell out of use in the 1960s and '70s, many of the depots completely disappeared, done in by progress or vandalism. The Goleta Depot might have experienced the same fate, since it had been vandalized and was in danger of being razed, but the Institute for American Research, a Santa Barbara nonprofit educational group, stepped in just in time. The group purchased the building in 1981, moved it three miles west, restored it and had it named a Santa Barbara County Historical Landmark.

The group celebrates the occasion of the move each September with Depot Day, when train rides, a silent auction, an exhibit of steam engines and a tri-tip barbecue are featured. This year, the event will be held from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Sept. 28.

Staffed by volunteers, the museum strives to paint a vivid picture of those days when trains rumbled down the tracks, stopping at small communities along California's coast.

``Everything here is an effort to preserve and teach the past,'' said Olsen.

Visitors can start a visit to the past with a tour of the partially restored caboose, which boasts a bay window and is dressed in the Southern Pacific's signature brownish-red paint.

``That's where the crew would stay when the train was moving,'' said Coombs, adding that cabooses were outfitted with a desk, sink, toilet, bed and stove.

Time for trains

Inside the bright yellow, brown and white depot, which in its heyday served as both a freight and passenger station, visitors can browse through exhibits in the former waiting room and study a 300-square-foot model train layout depicting the 1930s-era Santa Barbara and Goleta depots and their surroundings.

They can also explore the refurbished freight office, once ``the action center of the building,'' said Coombs. The office is outfitted much as it would have been in the years prior to World War II. There are the usual desks and cabinets and a vintage array of machinery - a telephone, teletype, signaling equipment and a telegraph.

Using a copy of the old code telegraphers once employed, visitors are invited to tap out a message on the telegraph, Coombs said, and they can work the signaling equipment, as well.

``You really do get the feeling you're in an old freight office,'' he said.

One of the most popular features of the museum is the miniature diesel train - dubbed the Goleta Short Line - that takes adults and children alike on a one-third-mile trip around the landscaped grounds.

Making tracks

The South Coast Railroad Museum is located at 300 N. Los Carneros Road, Goleta, about seven miles north of Santa Barbara (off the 101 Freeway).

Hours are 1 to 4 p.m. Wednesday through Sunday. Admission is free; donations are welcome. Train rides, which cost $1 per person (all riders must be at least 34 inches tall), are available between 2 and 3:30 p.m. Wednesday and Friday and 1 to 4 p.m. Saturday and Sunday.

Handcar rides are offered free the third Saturday of each month.

The museum will host its 15th annual Depot Day11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Sept. 28. Two miniature trains, with engines modeled after Southern Pacific locomotives, will take visitors on rides around the grounds. Steam engines will be on exhibit, there will be a continuous showing of railroad films and a daylong silent auction. In addition, visitors will be able to view the restored upstairs living quarters of the former station agents. And a tri-tip barbecue will be available from noon to 3 p.m. at $7 for adults, $5 for children.

Admission to Depot Day will be $1; miniature train rides will be $1 and handcar rides will be 50 cents.

Information: [phone].

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Photo: The South Coast Railroad Museum in Lake Los Carneros County Park includes a caboose and the restored Goleta Depot, which was built in 1901.

Tina Gerson/Daily News

Box: Making tracks (See Text)