On Dec. 18, 1929, Tom Averill — better known as “Tom Vernon” or “Buffalo” Tom — was sentenced to life in state prison for the infamous Great Saugus Train Robbery.

Los Angeles County District Attorney Buron Fitts sought the death penalty, but Vernon instead received a life sentence for the daring crime that had shocked the region just one month earlier.

The robbery took place on the evening of Nov. 10, 1929, just southeast of what is now the Santa Clarita Metrolink station. Vernon, an ex-convict and drifter who had recently worked on a Saugus ranch, had set his sights on the Southern Pacific Railroad after failing to secure employment with the company.

Around 6 p.m., Vernon stole a claw bar and wrench from a Southern Pacific tool house and made his way to the tracks west of the Baker Rodeo Arena, later known as Saugus Speedway.

There, he carefully removed spikes and splicebars from approximately 60 feet of rail, deliberately leaving signal wires intact to avoid alerting engineers.

Locomotive 5042, along with the baggage car and a smoker, overturned and tore through more than 600 yards of track before crashing into a ditch near the future site of Saugus Speedway. Engineer R.C. Ball was pinned beneath the locomotive and badly scalded by steam, but was the only reported injury. Remarkably, the passenger cars remained upright.

As passengers attempted to process the chaos, a 5-foot-6-inch man armed with a .38-caliber revolver emerged from the darkness. Nervous but determined, Vernon initially posed as a railroad employee to calm passengers before covering his face with a bandana and demanding their money.

Southern Pacific employee W.S. Higgins thwarted Vernon’s attempt to rob another car by shouting a warning and alerting a porter, who locked the doors. Vernon escaped with roughly $300 taken from 12 passengers before disappearing into the night.

Deputy Sheriff Jack Pember soon identified the suspect as Vernon, an itinerant cowboy with a fascination for Buffalo Bill Cody and mul. Investigators determined Vernon had hidden in nearby brush, waiting for the derailment before committing the robbery.

His escape was nearly as audacious as the crime itself. Vernon convinced a motorist at Wood’s Garage near Saugus Junction — now the intersection of Bouquet Canyon Road and Magic Mountain Parkway — to drive him to Los Angeles, claiming his daughter had been injured in the wreck. The driver, Thomas Firth of Burbank, agreed to the trip for $5, roughly $95 today.

Vernon’s crime spree continued. Within weeks, he derailed another train near Cheyenne, Wyoming, and was planning a third robbery when he was captured in Pawnee, Oklahoma. Authorities had tracked him down by following the trail of letters he continued sending to various female acquaintances.

What became of Vernon after prison remains a subject of debate.

While Santa Clarita Valley historian Jerry Reynolds wrote that Vernon died in 1967 shortly after his release from a “social disease,” other accounts offer a different ending. Vernon was pardoned by Gov. Pat Brown in 1964, but he was paroled more than a decade earlier.

An August 7, 1953, interview in The Post-Register of Idaho Falls shows Vernon posing as rodeo star “Buffalo” Tom Vernon, suggesting he did not serve his full life sentence.

Carolena Rezendes, a California resident, also disputes Reynold’s account, 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.”

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