On the evening of Nov. 10, 1929, just southeast of what is now the Santa Clarita Metrolink station, a daring and dramatic train robbery unfolded in Saugus, California.

It was an act that would go down as one of the region’s most audacious crimes, carried out by an ex-convict and drifter known as Tom Averill, AKA “Tom Vernon” or “Buffalo” Tom. 

Vernon, a man with a criminal past who had recently worked on a Saugus ranch, had his sights set on the Southern Pacific Railroad.

 After failing to secure a job with the Southern Pacific Railroad, he concocted a plan to derail one of their trains and rob the passengers.

The scene was set as Train No. 59, the West Coast Limited, made its way out of Saugus Station on the November evening. 

The train’s powerful, massive 5000-series steam locomotive left the station at 7:40 PM, building speed as it headed through Soledad Canyon. But the train’s journey was cut short when it lurched and swayed just past Bouquet Junction. 

The train tore through 600 yards of track before crashing onto its side, sending up a shower of fiery sparks. 

The engineer barely escaped scalding as the steamer skidded to a halt near what would later become the Saugus Speedway.

While the train lay overturned, the passenger cars miraculously stayed upright, sparing the passengers from further injury, but their fright was far from over. 

Out of the shadows emerged a 5-foot-6-inch figure, a man with a commanding presence and a revolved. 

Vernon, armed with a .38-caliber pistol, quickly took control of the scene. Speaking calmly and confidently, he soothed the panicked passengers, only to proceed with his true aim: robbing the passengers of all their valuables. 

After collecting around $300, he melted into the dark, leaving chaos behind.

The story didn’t end there. Local law enforcement, led by Deputy Sheriff Jack Pember, soon arrived at the scene and quickly pieced together the audacious plot. 

Pember identified the culprit as “Buffalo” Tom, an itinerant cowboy known for his admiration of Buffalo Bill Cody. Vernon had broken into the Southern Pacific Yard’s tool shed, stealing the equipment needed to unfasten the rails and derail the train.

 He had then hidden in the nearby brush, waiting for the train to crash so he could execute his robbery.

After the heist, Vernon made his escape in an unusual manner. He approached Wood’s Garage, a local service station, and convinced a man named Thomas Firth of Burbank to give him a ride to Los Angeles.

He claimed his daughter had been injured in a train wreck, and Firth agreed to drive him to the Children’s Hospital in Los Angeles for a five-dollar fare. 

Despite Vernon’s clever getaway, his crime spree was far from over. Only two weeks later, he derailed another train near Cheyenne, Wyoming, with plans for a third heist already in the works when he was finally captured in Pawnee, Oklahoma. 

Set of mugshots of Thomas Vernon. Courtesy of Santa Clarita Historic Society.

His spree and subsequent capture made headlines, capturing the public’s attention and earning him a reputation as a notorious train robber of the era.

On Dec. 18, 1929, Tom Vernon was sentenced to life imprisonment at Folsom Prison. He was eventually released in 1964 after serving 35 years, but his life post-prison remains a matter of historical debate. 

While Santa Clarita Valley historian Jerry Reynolds wrote that Vernon died shortly after his release from a “social disease,” other accounts offer a different ending. 

However, Carolena Rezendes, a California resident, disputes the official records, stating that Vernon lived with her family in Sacramento in the late 1950s.

“I know for a fact that he was not in prison in 1957/1958 because he was living with my family in Sacramento, California, in 1957 & 1958,” stated Rezendes. “As to how he died, it was tuberculosis. Our family buried him.”

Regardless of the exact details of his final years, Vernon’s life story remains a fascinating part of California’s history. 

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