Santa Barbara Vino Train

Did You Know? - The Santa Barbara Train Station is located in central Santa Barbara, only a few blocks from the beaches and promenades to the south, and the historic and shopping areas across the 101 Freeway.

Did You Know? - The Santa Barbara Train Station underwent a rehabilitation and reconstruction which was finished in 2000. The ticket office has been restored to its original grandeur, plumbing, electrical, heating and cooling systems have been updated, seating areas have been restored. In addition, the parking lots and the adjacent Railway Express Agency building were redone.

Did You Know? - Sustained walking sessions for a minimum period of thirty to sixty minutes a day, five days a week, with the correct walking posture, reduces health risks and has various overall health benefits, such as reducing the chances of cancer, type 2 diabetes, heart disease, anxiety and depression. Life expectancy is also increased even for individuals suffering from obesity or high blood pressure. Walking also increases bone health, especially strengthening the hip bone, and lowering the more harmful bad low-density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol, and raises the more useful good high-density lipoprotein (HDL) cholesterol.

Did You Know? - When preparing to travel, lay out all your clothes and all your money. Then take half the clothes and twice the money. ~Susan Heller

Remember: And that's the wonderful thing about family travel: it provides you with experiences that will remain locked forever in the scar tissue of your mind. ~Dave Barry

Remember: I have found out that there ain't no surer way to find out whether you like people or hate them than to travel with them. ~Mark Twain

Remember: In America there are two classes of travel - first class, and with children. ~Robert Benchley

Remember: The traveler sees what he sees. The tourist sees what he has come to see. ~G.K. Chesterton

Remember: The most important trip you may take in life is meeting people halfway. ~Henry Boye

Did You Know? - A map is a visual representation of an area—a symbolic depiction highlighting relationships between elements of that space such as objects, regions, and themes. Many maps are static two-dimensional, geometrically accurate (or approximately accurate) representations of three-dimensional space, while others are dynamic or interactive, even three-dimensional. Although most commonly used to depict geography, maps may represent any space, real or imagined, without regard to context or scale; e.g. Brain mapping, DNA mapping, and extraterrestrial mapping.

Did You Know? - A train whistle or air whistle, (originally referred to as a steam trumpet), is an audible signaling device on a steam locomotive used to warn that the train is approaching, and to communicate with rail workers.

The older steam whistles were almost always actuated with a pull cord (or sometimes a lever) that permitted proportional (tracker) action, so that some form of "expression" could be put into the sound. Many locomotive operators would have their own style of blowing the whistle, and it was often apparent who was operating the locomotive by the sound. Modern locomotives often make use of a pushbutton switch, which takes away the fine control over the way the whistle is sounded.

Because trains generally have extremely high mass and relatively low braking friction, they are inherently difficult to stop at normal speeds. Since train whistles were extremely inexpensive to institute compared to other more effective warning devices, the use of loud and distinct train whistles had become the preferred safety fallback for railway operators.

Train whistles are used to communicate to other railroad workers on a train or to railroad workers in the yard. Different combinations of long and short whistles each have their own meaning. They are used to pass instructions, as a safety signal, and to warn of impending movements of a train. Despite the advent of modern radio communication, many of these whistle signals are still used today.

Signals are illustrated by an "o" for short sounds, and "-" for longer sounds.

Did You Know? - A (US and Canada) classification yard or (UK and Canada) marshalling yard (including hump yards) is a railroad yard found at some freight train stations, used to separate railroad cars on to one of several tracks. First the cars are taken to a track, sometimes called a lead or a drill. From there the cars are sent through a series of switches called a ladder onto the classification tracks. Larger yards tend to put the lead on an artificially built hill called a hump to use the force of gravity to propel the cars through the ladder.

Hump yeards are the largest and most effective classification yards with the largest shunting capacity – often several thousand cars a day. The heart of these yards is the hump: a lead track on a hill (hump) over which the cars are pushed by the engine. Single cars, or some coupled cars in a block, are uncoupled just before or at the crest of the hump and roll by gravity into their destination tracks in the classification bowl (the tracks where the cars are sorted).