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Members of the Friends of the Depot (FOTD) are hard at work cleaning and refurbishing the railroad signals from Bill Stokoe's collection and getting them ready to be placed in the park adjacent to the rebuilt Tehachapi Depot.

Stokoe who was a signal supervisor for Southern Pacific for more than forty years had the signals in his back yard at the corner of Hayes and F Streets. His extensive collection of railroad signals, some dating back to 1898, and memorabilia was passed on to the City of Tehachapi upon his death in 1999. The Stokoe collection was featured on Huell Howser's "Road Trip with Huell Houser #104" show back in the 1990's.

Most of the signals have been moved to a hanger at the airport where a team of volunteers from Friends of the Depot meet every Monday morning and work to bring them back to life. The crew is sand blasting some of the metal portions of the signals, hand sanding the wood and metal materials, repainting and re-wiring electrical components, cleaning and replacing glass and other missing parts.

Once refurbished the signals will be moved to the depot park and placed on concrete bases put in by the city construction department crew under the direction of Construction Supervisor Mike Pera. The "Signal Garden" as it has been called, will be a one-of-a-kind display and will require on-going maintenance which will handled by the FOTD as part of their responsibilities at the museum.

The crew from FOTD are also repairing and refurbishing the freight scales, a smaller set of scales, a pot belly stove and other items that will be part of the museum. The museum and park are scheduled to open in the spring of this year.

Friends of the Tehachapi Depot (FOTD) is now distributing Save Mart S.H.A.R.E.S. cards to raise funds for the Tehachapi Depot Museum. S.H.A.R.E.S. is an acronym for Supporting Humanities, Arts, Recreation, Education & Sports in our community. Using a S.H.A.R.E.S. card when purchasing groceries at Save Mart stores is an easy way to donate to FOTD. Our organization will receive a quarterly check for 3% of the cardholder's qualified purchases.

If you don’t have your 
S.H.A.R.E.S. card yet, request one by calling Carol Westover at (661) 823-7832 or e-mailing This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it . Ask for the S.H.A.R.E.S. card and provide your mailing address. We'll send you one by mail.