Curiosities: Railroad Hotels

Wherever there has been a railroad, there has been a railroad hotel. This has been a constant since passenger railroads first became mainstream in the United States in the 1840s. Naturally, as the railroad spread throughout the Monterey Bay area, hotels sprang up with them. But while some hotels prompted stops of their own—such as Casa del Rey, Del Monte, Capitola, Forest Grove, Alma, Tuxedo, and Swanton—others were built to accompany an already existent stop. What made railroad hotels unique, though, were their clientele. Unlike other hotels, railroad hotels catered specifically to people engaged in railroad-related activities, including freight crews, lumberjacks, and itinerant workers. Santa Cruz and Watsonville both sported titular railroad hotels over the years, and they all fit this model.

Even as the dreams of the San Lorenzo Railroad were dashed by years of litigation, the Santa Cruz Rail Road Hotel opened in January 1872 at the corner of Cooper and Front Streets in downtown Santa Cruz. Owned by Christopher Patten under lease from Dan Wente, the two-story Rail Road Hotel began advertising in local newspapers the merits and commutability of the railroad a full four years before any route to San José was available. Advertisements for the hotel focused more on meals than lodging, but both were relatively affordable for the time. Lodging and board for a week cost only $5.00 per person (25¢ more if you want a bed), while meals were a quarter each. Patten's gamble did not seem to pay off. Advertisements for the complex disappeared after April 1872. When the Santa Cruz & Felton Railroad finally did pass through town in 1875, the company was forced to switch to horse-drawn rail cars to get the lumber to the Railroad Wharf, a tactic that proved unsustainable. A tunnel was bored under Mission Hill and the tracks were rerouted around downtown, five blocks away from Patten's hotel. Patten died in 1893, although his wife, Maria Natalia Dodero, lived until 1922.

A lithograph sketch of the Germania Hotel as it appeared in the late 1870s. [Santa Cruz Sentinel]

A new and more appropriately-named hotel popped up not far from the Santa Cruz Railroad's end-of-track on Park Street in 1877. Built by Robert K. Whidden with logs harvested on Granite Creek, this two-story hotel was one of the most conservative establishments in the city, declining the fade of houses of ill-repute and instead becoming one of the more respectable institutions. For the first few years, it was known as the Germania Hotel and was run by Frank Pratchner and then J.P. Krieg, who both favoured German-speaking customers. But when the South Pacific Coast Railroad purchased the Santa Cruz & Felton in 1879 and installed a passenger facility on Cherry Street, traffic increased dramatically and the establishment was rebranded the Railroad Hotel. It became the haunt of railroad passengers and employees. Men and women had segregated smoking parlors, and a waiting area was built to cater to passengers waiting for trains. Around the time that the Union Station was built in 1893, the Railroad Hotel was renamed the Santa Cruz Hotel since the railroad station was now further away and nearer to other hotels. The Santa Cruz Hotel has always been synonymous with good food, and from the 1950s it became primarily an Italian restaurant owned by a series of individuals including John Righetti, Louie Facelli, Al Castagnola, Amigo (Friend) Arevalo, Don Stefani, Stella Pera, George Goebel, Anton Suk, George Philipps, Jack Campbell, Dan Robertson, Keith Wilkinson, and Frank Cardinale, among other more recent owners. The hotel became a bar and grill in 1976 and joined the Cardinale chain of restaurants in 1983. It has also served as The Red Room lounge and is currently Planet Fresh Burritos.

Santa Cruz Railroad Exchange Hotel, 1917. [Sanborn]

A truly-dedicated two-story railroad hotel would not be erected until around 1902, about a decade after the Santa Cruz Union Depot was built near the junction of Center Street and Pacific Avenue. The Railroad Exchange Hotel first appeared on Sanborn maps in 1905 on the site of the former Centennial Flour Mill (and built using recycled wood from that mill). It was a multipurpose complex that included a bar, bowling alley, wine house, outside cabins, and upstairs lodgings. The Italian-born Antone Pelizza, Jr., and his wife took over operations of the hotel in 1909 and began extensively remodeling and expanding the facility. The results of this renovation was the addition of a large lodging space between the bar and the wine house. The Pelizzas owned the hotel until the early 1920s when they sold it to partners Angelo Di Marco, Steffani Grossi, and Julius Grossi.

Newspaper advertisement for the
Depot Hotel, 1935. [SC Evening News]

Prohibition had an ill effect on the Railroad Exchange Hotel and the business was cited in 1921 for failing to remove a sign advertising Excelsior Beer, thereby violating the Volsted Act. The hotel was raided numerous times, as well, and each time police discovered evidence of violations. Angelo was fined for possession of contraband drinks in 1929 and again in 1931. In 1930, Steffani and Julius were both fined for bootlegging. Nonetheless, the hotel continued to thrive and its restaurant, focused on Italian dinners, brought an increasing number of customers to the establishment. The restaurant was rebranded the Depot Hotel around 1930, although this new name only became official in 1935 when advertisements for it began appearing in local newspapers.

Do-Drop-In newspaper advertisement, 1953. [SC Sentinel]

By the mid-1930s, the hotel had become one of the city's hot spots under the management of Earl Harris "Hux" Huxtable. By this point, the establishment was more restaurant than hotel and catered to local businesspeople and entrepreneurs rather than low-income workers. The restaurant temporarily shut down over the winter of 1936-1937 to be modernized and upgraded as the Lido Cafe, named after the famous restaurant in San Francisco that burned down in 1933. Management of the hotel was run by E. Malatesta and Leo Pera, who desired to transform the business into "the area's most attractive, moderne dining and dancing resorts." The facility was briefly renamed "Micossi's Hotel" in the late 1940s before returning to Lido. It was renamed the "Do-Drop-In" in 1952 after Ernest Canepa purchased the restaurant. However, Ernest relocated to Portola in 1959 with his frequent partner, George Ghio. The history of the Railroad Exchange Hotel disappears at this time. The building was demolished no later than the 1980s and the site is now occupied by Chris Bordner's Auto Body shop on Center Street.

Railroad Hotel on Beach Street across
from the Watsonville Depot, 1902.
[Sanborn]

In Watsonville, a Railroad Hotel existed from at least November 1901 when a robbery occurred there, causing it to be mentioned in the Sentinel. Sanborn Insurance maps from 1902 show the hotel as a cluster of buildings located directly across the street form the Southern Pacific depot at the south-west corner of Beach Road and Walker Street. Nothing is known of the ownership of this facility. The hotel was demolished at some point in the late 1910s. No known photographs exist of the hotel, although a number of early photographs of Watsonville Depot appear to have been taken on its second-story balcony or in front of the hotel.

Watsonville Railroad Exchange Hotel, c. 1900. [Adi Zehner]

Railroad Exchange Hotel on Walker
Street, 1902. [Sanborn]

Across the street and down half-a-block from the Railroad Hotel was the similarly-sized rectangular Railroad Exchange Hotel. This hotel was thirty feet by forty feet and two-and-a-half stories tall and included a large downstairs dining room and a separate saloon near the main entrance. The hostelry was erected by Dalmatian immigrant George J. Strazicich in 1893 with the help of his wife, Anka Korotaj. A family member, Andy Strazicich, managed the hotel until 1900 when George and Anka took over. Further renovations were made in 1907, including the installation of electric lights. George leased the hotel to Catherine and Paul Boudry in 1909, who sold the lease to William Sersen in 1910, who transferred it to John B. Labas in 1911, who passed it on to J. Lazar Jalovica in 1912, who returned it to George in December 1912.

George Strazicich, Sr., ca 1880.

George was a problematic owner because he did not adhere to the expectations of how a hotelier should act. From the 1890s through the 1920s, he and his son (confusingly also named George) violated public policy after public policy. In 1914, one of the Georges lost the hotel its liquor license because he "was not a proper person to conduct the business, because he had allowed disreputable persons to frequent his place and that he had permitted liquor to be served to women." Unsurprisingly, the hotel was also the subject of a raid by federal agents during Prohibition, with a $500 fine slapped on the establishment for multiple violations in 1921. Indeed, despite a stellar review of George and his business in 1925's History of Monterey and Santa Cruz Counties, the elder George had a reputation in the Sentinel as being anything but gentlemanly. To prove this point, the hotel was shuttered from June 1926 until the same month 1927 due to further violations of the Volsted Act, while one of George Sr.'s other sons was arrested for drunk driving that same year, also violating the act. The hotel was eventually purchased by the Lacabre family of King City, who razed the hotel in March 1943. The site is now a parking lot that sits between George's Liquor Store and the Valley Packing Service Inn Foods–US Food Service office.

There were other "railroad" hotels that littered the Santa Cruz Mountains from Boulder Creek to San Juan Bautista. Very little is known about them and many were probably closer to bed and breakfasts in large private homes than anything resembling purpose-built hotels. At least one such structure was on Zayante Schoolhouse Road at Eccles Station and still exists today as a private home. Most of these were built between 1890 and 1910, the boom years of the mountain tourism industry, and most were closed or abandoned in the 1920s as automobiles made traveling a more personalised, shorter endeavor. Railroad hotels were once a major feature of any large-scale railroading enterprise, but, like the rest of the passenger railroading industry, they quickly collapsed as the Great Depression, World War II, and the rise of the automobile made them irrelevant.

Citations & Credits:

• Koch, Margaret. "The Santa Cruz Hotel: Newest Member of the 100 Year Club". SC Sentinel, 11 September 1977, 25:1-8.
• History of Monterey and Santa Cruz Counties, California. Chicago: San José Clarke Publishing, 1925.
• Ninkovich, Thomas (ed.). The Slav Community of Watsonville, California: As reported in old newspapers (1881-1920). Watsonville, CA: Reunion Research, 2014.
• Santa Cruz Evening News, 1927 – 1936.
• Santa Cruz Sentinel, Weekly Sentinel, and Evening Sentinel, 1872 – 1992.
• Siebenthal, Denise. "Local man buys Santa Cruz Hotel restaurants". SC Sentinel, 16 October 1983, 22:1-4.

Stations: Cassin

Michael Cassin was an East Coast immigrant to California who settled in San Francisco in 1859. Not long after his son, Charles Michael Cassin, was born on January 10, 1868, Michael, his wife Mary Anne Daly, and their son moved to north Monterey County on a swampy agricultural parcel adjacent to the Pajaro River. During this time, Charles attended Watsonville High School before enrolling in Santa Clara College in the mid-1880s. He graduated in 1888 and spent three years at Notre Dame and the University of Michigan where he became a lawyer. In 1893, Charles co-opened the legal offices of Cassin & Lucas in downtown Santa Cruz. Meanwhile, his father moved off the Pajaro River farm around 1890 and relocated to a cottage in Santa Cruz.

Charles M. Cassin, c. 1890. [Find A Grave]

It must have been at this time that Cassin station was named, although it is highly possible that the family continued to lease after they left. The Pajaro Valley Railroad first carved its path on the outside edge of the Cassin property in 1890, and the stop it planted there was located 4.9 miles from Watsonville and 22.8 miles from Spreckels. The railroad set up one of its longest spurs here, capable of holding 24 cars. This suggests that the Cassin farm produced sugar beets as one of its primary products since the farm was not much larger than its neighbors, who hosted significantly smaller spurs and sidings. Although information is scarce, it is likely that the station hosted a beet-loading dump and a fair-sized staging area, and the stop certainly could be used for passenger service to Watsonville or Salinas as well. How long the farm remained in the Cassin family is unknown to this author, but the railroad spur and stop do not appear on the 1912 USGS map, suggesting they were already removed by that time. At latest, the station and spur were removed in 1930, after the Pajaro Valley Consolidated Railroad ceased operations along the line and the tracks were pulled.

Charles M. Cassin, 1906. [Santa Cruz Elks]

The Cassin family remained prominent in Santa Cruz County even after Michael died in 1907. Charles became a city attorney in 1893 and was active in the Elks Lodge and the Native Sons of the Golden West. He married Josephine Murphy, a Watsonville resident, in 1896 and they had six children together, several of whom have descendants living in the county today. In 1913, Charles moved to San José, leaving his son, Charles Jr., in charge of his Santa Cruz firm. He died in 1924 and is buried near his father in the Valley Catholic Cemetery.

Geo-Coordinates & Access Rights:
36.866˚N, 121.802˚W

The site of Cassin is unremarkable today. The site is located on a private access road (the former right-of-way) squeezed between the Pajaro River and a large field adjacent to Trafton Road. The only remnant of the station left is an irrigation channel that passes immediately beside the former stop. There is no physical trace of the stop remaining in the area and the site is inaccessible to the public.

Citations & Credits:

• Martin, Edward. History of Santa Cruz County, California, with Biographical Sketches. Los Angeles: Historic Record Company, 1911.

Stations: Thurwachter

The Thurwachter spur along the Pajaro Valley Consolidated Railroad
 right-of-way, 1912 [USGS]

Frederick Thurwachter was one of the many early settlers to move to Watsonville in the 1850s. Born in Rheinpfalz, Germany in 1832 to Johann Thürwachter and Maria Henke, Frederick voyaged to New York in 1850 and lived there until 1854 when he moved to California and worked in the mines for three years. In July 1858, Thurwachter definitively moved to Watsonville where he rented land on a local ranch for the better part of six years. In 1866, he finally purchased a 113-acre farm of his own on Beach Road near the mouth of the Pajaro River. When he bought the property, there was little more than marshy, sandy wastes, but within a short time he converted the entire area into a profitable ranch. Thurwachter was regionally famous for introducing European farming techniques to the Pajaro Valley. He began growing Bellflower apples on fifteen acres with potatoes and barley as his primary cash crops. In the 1880s, the latter two were replaced by sugar beets.

Frederick and Catherine Thurwachter, 1890s. [Flora Vista Inn]

Thurwachter married Catherine Sweeny of Ireland in 1862 and together they had eight children, three of whom survived the century: Margaret Carolina, Ella Teresa, and Frances Louise. The family built its permanent residence on Beach Road in 1872. It was modelled off of Abraham Lincoln's Neo-Georgian Springfield, Illinois home and was popularly known as the "T-Wester House.' The current, heavily remodelled structure is 3,200 square feet and includes two sitting rooms, a central staircase, a hidden stairwell, and four upstairs bedrooms. From 1929 until 1963, the house became famous because of its Monterey cypress trees, which were trimmed into various artistic styles.

People on a horse-drawn tractor on the Thurwachter farm, c. 1890s. [Flora Vista Inn]

Thurwachter is unique in that it had the only Pajaro Valley Consolidated Railroad stop in Santa Cruz County other than the two Watsonville stops. The railroad's right-of-way ran along the southern bank of the Pajaro River, but directly across from the Thurwachter farm, at the end of an access road that ran perpendicular to Beach Road, a spur line was extended across a bridge over the river. The tracks barely made it into the county, but there was enough trackage on the farm for a few cars to park so that the Thurwachters could load goods. Passing PVCRR trains could then pick up these cars and drop off empty cars for future loading. The spur was probably added around 1900, after the beet refinery was removed to Salinas. Evidence for this is based on the fact that the spur exits to the south towards Salinas rather than to the north. The spur is clearly visible on USGS maps from the 1910s and it leaves a noticeable footprint on stylised maps of the PVCRR route that have been published in recent years. Like the rest of the railroad, the route was abandoned in 1929 when the Southern Pacific Railroad bought out the line. The bridge was probably removed at this time, but the pilings may have stood in the river for many more years.

Large gathering at the T-Wester House, c. 1890s. [Flora Vista Inn]

Frederick and Catherine died only two months apart from each other in 1914. Initially, all three daughters claimed equal ownership of the property, and this lasted into the 1920s as attested by local property survey maps. Eventually, Ella, a confirmed spinster, came to own the whole property, or at least was its sole family occupant. Ella converted the farm from sugar beets to navy bean and lettuce production in the 1930s. She also was the first to introduce blue pod beans into the area. Ella died in 1963 and the home passed to her relative, Roy Folger, who was friends with Ansel Adams, who spent a day photographing the property in 1977. Tim Folger, Roy's son, continued on the farm until 1979, when he sold the property to an agricultural form. Wishing to preserve the home, Tom Mine purchased the house (but not the property) with the intent to renovate it, but costs proved too high. He eventually sold the house to George Mortan around 1988, but Mortan ran into the same problem. Meanwhile, the owners of the farm wanted to get the house off the property so they could use the space for further farming. Mortan finally decided to sell the house for $2 around 1992 via an open raffle. The winner, Darrell Darling, immediately began restoring it and moved north to a new location on San Andreas Road in 1997. Under the stewardship of Susan Van Horn and Brian Denny, who leased the home around 1999, the structure became a bed and breakfast and gained the name The Inn at Manresa Beach, which soon evolved into the Aptos Beach Inn (in 2003) and is now the Flora Vista Inn. It still operates today on San Andreas Road near La Salva Beach.

Geo-Coordinates & Access Rights:
36.868˚N, 121.804˚W

The site of Thurwachter station is today located at the end of a long private access road that breaks off at the intersection of West Beach Road and Rio Boca Road. The site itself is marked by a large utility yard that sits alongside the river. All trace of the bridge has disappeared from decades of storms and the construction of the Pajaro River levee. The street address for the farm is 2083 Beach Road southwest of Watsonville, which places it a considerable distance to the north from the station. The farmhouse is now located on 1258 San Andreas Road as the Flora Vista Inn Bed & Breakfast.

Citations & Credits:

• Count of Santa Cruz. "Historic Resources Commission" report. May 5, 2005.
• Flora Vista Inn website.
• Harrison, E.S. History of Santa Cruz County, California. San Francisco: Pacific Press Publishing, 1892.
• Muraoka, Keith. "This house needs a home." Santa Cruz Sentinel, November 2, 1990, Page 1.

Stations: Williamson

Approximate location of Williamson,
which is unmarked on this 1914 USGS map.

As the Pajaro Valley Railroad followed the course of the Pajaro River to the Monterey Bay, it reached a point where three stations sat in close proximity to each other. The northernmost of these stops was called Williamson, after the farm of William J. Williamson, an Irish farmer and former 49er. In late 1864, Williamson moved to Santa Cruz County and became one half of Brown & Williamson Lumber Company in Watsonville, which he operated until 1874 when they sold the firm to Charles Ford. The next year, Williamson purchased 175 acres of reclaimed slough land near the mouth of the Pajaro River.

Williamson and his family built a large farmstead at 951 Trafton Road soon after moving to the new property. Three generations of Williamsons lived on the ranch. William and his wife, Artemissa Sands, settled in the Trafton District with their two children, Robert Samuel and Caroline. By 1881, Robert had a son, James, and three daughters, Mary E., Ethel, and Inez, who all lived and worked on the farm alongside their mother, Susan Frances Armpriest. After Susan died in 1882, Robert married Mollie Ashton and had a second son, Orman Robert. In addition to a large ranch house, the farmstead included a bunkhouse for the seasonal workers that could hold up to twenty-five men. A Chinese cook, meanwhile, was employed each year to prepare food for the family and workers. Everyone ate their meals together for maximum efficiency. The property also featured a blacksmith shop and wagon repair station.

The farm produced a variety of crops across its vast acres, but its primary products were wheat, oats, and hay. Potatoes, apples and pears were often planted in select areas of the estate, while a small ranch area was reserved for cows, pigs, and chickens. Williamson's operation was broad and relatively inefficient initially, but it had a good reputation among local farmers. Between 1875 and 1900, the Williamson family worked to optimise the farm and it became one of the first intensive agricultural operations in the region.

In 1883, William's son Robert inherited the estate and he began growing sugar beets for Claus Spreckel's new factory in Watsonville in 1888. When the Pajaro Valley Railroad began construction alongside the Pajaro River in early 1890, it passed immediately alongside Williamson's western property boundary. The railroad station likely had a beet-loading mechanism and a small freight platform for other goods. Technically, the site also served as a passenger flag stop for anybody on the farm who wanted a short ride to Watsonville. Sugar beets remained the family's primary crop until the late 1920s when advancements in irrigation allowed them to grow lettuce for the first time. Although sugar beets continued to be one of their products until 1945, these would have been shipped by truck after the Pajaro Valley Consolidated Railroad was abandoned in 1930.

The property changed hands a number of times after Robert's death in 1900. His second wife, Mollie Ashton, and Robert's eldest son from his first marriage, James William, cooperatively ran the farm until 1913, when Mollie bought out his interest, as well as the claims of his three sisters, and partnered with her son, Orman Robert Williamson. Together, they became a highly efficient farming operation. Orman joined the local agricultural aristocracy in 1921 when he married Etheleen Learned Trafton, his neighbour to the north. At this point, Orman built a new home across from his parents' house. Both of these homes still exist today. Lettuce and cauliflower became the main family crops until 1958, when the family leased the entire historic property to Louis H. Delfino, who began to rotate in artichokes. Delfino retired in 2000 and died in October 2011, but his family continues to lease the property today.

Geo-Coordinates & Access Rights:
36.868˚N, 121.802˚W

The site of Williamson is not accessible from any road, although the property is off Trafton Road south of McGowan Road. The original right-of-way is now a narrow access road that runs along the eastern side of the Pajaro River levee, while the station itself is unmarked but was located just north of a viaduct at the furtherest western curve of the river. The Williamson family farmstead sits on the east side of Trafton Road below a small hillside—two historic homes sit facing each other across a private driveway south-east of the former railroad stop.

Citations & Credits:

• PST Consultants, LLC. "Agricultural Resources Evaluation Handbook, Monterey County, California"  (September 2011)

Quarterly Bulletin – Vol. 2: No. 2 (Apr-Jun 2017)

Santa Cruz Trains Quarterly Bulletin

Vol. 2: No. 2 – April-June 2017

(Also available as a downloadable PDF)

Feature Article:

Repairing tracks in Santa Cruz: The thankless duty of all railroad companies

By Derek Whaley

A recent series of winter storms have swept through Santa Cruz County, destabilizing mountainsides, destroying roads, and damaging portions of railroad track. But winter storms are hardly a new phenomenon. Railroad companies realize quickly that maintaining tracks in Santa Cruz is an expensive task. Photo by Ben Rylander.

From Chittenden in the south to Swanton in the north, the railroad trackage in Santa Cruz County has taken a beating of late.

The Swanton Pacific Railroad had to cancel its annual Al Smith Day in April due to track damage, reporting that "volunteers have already begun planning necessary repairs to the railroad." The right-of-way was already damaged from a New Years' Day washout, but this was made worse by heavy rains in January and February. The road to Swanton is also damaged and unstable, causing further headaches.

On the other side of the county, agricultural run-off has caused the tracks at Gallighan Slough to be completely undercut (see photo, pg 1). Howard Cohen writes that "this is a direct result of illegal dumping of storm water from the adjacent berry field onto the rail corridor."

Slides, sinks, and washouts have also impacted trackage along the Santa Cruz Big Trees & Pacific Railway line. It may take months before all of these routes are running at peak efficiency again, and many repairs will have to wait until the rainy season ends in April.

Although these are just some issues in a laundry list of problems caused by winter storms that saw Santa Cruz County virtually surrounded by closed roads for brief periods of time, they are also not the first time that the county has suffered infrastructure damage due to overly harsh winters. Indeed, the railroad route that once passed through the Santa Cruz Mountains to Los Gatos met its ultimate fate when such a winter storm severely damaged large stretches of the right-of-way in February 1940 in areas that received especially severe poundings in the recent atmospheric rivers. It is doubtful that the existing former right-of-way, today largely a Santa Cruz City water district fire road, remains in the same condition as it did before January. But this is just the way of life in the Santa Cruz Mountains.

When the Santa Cruz & Felton Railroad opened in 1875, winter storms tossed much of the track work into the San Lorenzo River near modern-day Inspiration Point and the Garden of Eden. Slides such as this recurred along the same stretch of track almost annually, while larger storms had a habit of destroying the tracks outright. When the South Pacific Coast Railroad took control of the right-of-way in 1879, it built a tunnel beneath Inspiration Point to help avoid an especially persistent slide zone, but slides continued to fall on the tracks at the southern tunnel portal forcing the railroad to repeatedly extend the tunnel entrance further and further to the south.

Beside this site was a place known as Coon Gulch, but in reality it was simply a slide zone that could not sustain a railroad track on solid ground. A cheaply-built wooden bridge spanned it originally, but was replaced with a wooden truss bridge when storms washed out the first structure. This, in turn, was replaced with the elegant concrete arch half-bridge that still sits there today. Now when slides occur, they simply pile up on the tracks and crews push them over into the gorge—the trackage remains more or less intact.

The Santa Cruz Railroad suffered its own problems with winter storms. At the mouth of the San Lorenzo River, a long trestle and truss bridge was built in 1876 to complete the line between Santa Cruz and Watsonville. But in January 1881, a winter storm washed this entire bridge out to sea. This was one of the many reasons the railroad went bankrupt later that year and was sold at auction rate to the Southern Pacific Railroad. A new truss bridge was built in November 1883 to replace it.

An especially rainy winter in 1893, meanwhile, washed out the entire northern entrance portal of the Summit Tunnel between Laurel and Wrights. Crews were on the scene almost immediately to repair and upgrade the portal, installing a custom-designed oval concrete entrance portal that could withstand earth movements and an adjacent spillway to reroute water around the tunnel mouth. When the 1906 earthquake struck, the tunnel broke in half but the northern portal masonry survived unscathed.

Washout from storm damage near Olympia Station on the Southern Pacific route over the Santa Cruz Mountains, February 29, 1940. Bruce MacGregor Collection.

More generally, the routes through the Santa Cruz Mountains, to Watsonville, to Boulder Creek, to Loma Prieta in the modern-day Forest of Nisene Marks, and to Davenport all suffered their share of washouts, slides, and sinks between 1880 and 1940. Meanwhile, runoff from nearby agricultural fields and migratory dunes regularly cover the tracks in north and south county even today. But it is the job of the railroad to accept these expenses and repair the damage on an annual basis.

Until the closure of the Mountain Route in 1940, the Southern Pacific Railroad spent millions of dollars between 1906 and 1939 repairing annual storm damage to its mountain tracks. Bridges were built and reinforced with concrete foundations, tunnel portals were repaired and strengthened, culverts were installed at all major streams and creeks to avoid undercutting the track, and unsteady stretches of right-of-way were braced with redwood beams.

The history of local railroading is one of expensive and frequent repair work. Roaring Camp knew this when they purchased the Southern Pacific trackage between Santa Cruz and Olympia in 1982—it was sold because it was too expensive to repair after the winter storms of that year. Likewise, Iowa Pacific and Swanton Pacific understand that railroading in Santa Cruz County is expensive, but worth the cost. Santa Cruz has a long railroading tradition and no winter storm can put an end to it.

Special Report:

A childhood at the Santa Cruz yard

By Tom Clark

Derailed Southern Pacific freight train near Manresa State Beach,
April 1978. Photo by Tom Clark.

I became a model railroader at an early age, but it was during summer vacation of 1976 that I ramped things up and started to play with real trains. At that time I was 11 years old and, one day while hanging around the Santa Cruz railroad yard, I lucked out and met an engineer, James Hutton. After talking trains with him as we ate lunch, he invited me to sit in the cab of the GP-9 locomotive. This became a daily routine and resulted in my also meeting the brakeman, Bob Dickie, and the conductor, Bob Rice. Dickie was a very charismatic fellow with a corny sense of humor and Rice was a kind grandfather type of figure. The three of them let myself and two of my friends spend a lot of time in the caboose. It was their way of rewarding us for all of the work we saved them, by hooking up all of the rail-car air lines and running over and setting the far away track switches as they stood there and drank their coffee and directed us.

Every morning, I listened for the train horn as it passed 7th Avenue. That gave me enough time to run up the two flights of stairs to my parents’ third story attic where I could watch the first locomotive appear onto the trestle at the Boardwalk.

First, I counted the number of engines, then I made guesses as to how many cars the engine quantity might indicate. Many times there were 60 to 80 cars, first the Pacific Fruit Express reefers and Hydra Cushion box cars, then a random assortment of Staley tank cars and empty lumber flat cars. The last two-thirds of the train was always hopper cars loaded with coal and empty, covered hoppers for picking up cement from the Davenport cement plant. Before the caboose emerged from the hillside and onto the trestle, I was usually down the stairs and out the door, jumping onto my bicycle to race down to the yard and meet Jim and the rest of the crew. 

Two years later, in April of 1978, word got out that a train derailed at Manresa State Beach on its way to Watsonville Junction. That was a bit outside of my cycling distance, so I pestered my mom to take me until she gave in. Actually, she was curious and glad to do so.

I watched and took pictures with my Kodak “Instamatic” for a couple of hours on that cold, foggy morning. The crew laid new track sections onto the road bed, then placed wheel trucks onto the tracks, measured the distance between them, and then placed the cars back onto the trucks. A pair of heavy cranes, one at each end, raised and lowered the cars back onto their trucks with cable slings.

Boxcar being loaded by crane back onto its trucks near Manresa State

Beach, April 1978. Photo by Tom Clark.

That was when I learned that the only thing holding the cars onto the trucks was their own weight. A pin on each truck inserted into a hole on the underside of each end of the car, plus gravity. Restoration of the railroad line was a relatively short process and, if my memory serves me right, the Santa Cruz Branch was up and running just a couple of days later.A year after the retirement of engineer Jim Hutton, I moved with my family to Garmisch-Partenkir- chen in the Bavarian Alps. This put an end to my adventures on the Santa Cruz line, since when I got back, I discovered new circles of friends and new activities.

All these years later, I keep thinking about one thing: Jim Hutton was 65 when he retired in 1977; that means he was born around 1912. After thinking about this, I realized how much steam-era railroading he must have experienced. Those GP-9 Diesel locomotives, as old as they looked to me, were just new-fangled things to him, that came along in the later years of his career. Oh the questions I wish I had known to ask....

Railroading News:

Railroad Museum moves to North Bay

After over a year of indecision by the Santa Cruz County Regional Transportation Committee (RTC), the Golden Gate Railroad Museum management finally found a new home on the Northwestern Pacific Railway trackage at Schellville as of January 6, 2017. Plans are in place to store the rolling stock at the local freight yard until a more permanent facility is built.

The museum has yet to comment on plans for the future beyond the building of their storage facilities, but they have hinted at a permanent museum nearby and the possibility of excursions both locally along the NWP line and further afield. Currently, the museum's rolling stock remains at the Niles Canyon freight yard awaiting available storage space and negotiations with the Union Pacific Railroad for a relocation. Further information on the museum's relocation project is not known at this time.
Polar Express woes

On December 2, concerns were raised about the wobbly nature of the Santa Cruz & Monterey Bay Railway's seasonal Polar Express train as it travelled between Capitola and New Brighton State Beach. A Trail Now video went viral accompanied by complaints from some early passengers, prompting the excursions to be canceled for ten days.

Iowa Pacific Holdings, parent company of the local railroading franchise, issued a statement on December 3, stating that the ten-day delay was not, in fact, due to track problems but rather because the company had failed to file notice with the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) that the track was in a sufficient condition to qualify for excepted track status. The filing period for such a filing is ten days.

Although they were under no obligation to do so, Iowa Pacific conducted numerous repairs along the right-of-way to decrease the wobbling during the ten days in which they awaited approval from the FRA. Also, to make up for a week of lost sales and canceled tickets, the railroad added three more days of excursions prior to Christmas.

Approval was given on December 9 for the Polar Express to resume normal operations the following evening. No track defect violations were found by the FRA, while service across the line was improved during the waiting period.
Chinese tourists ride train, skip city
For the past few months, tour buses full of up to 300 Chinese tourists have quietly been visiting Roaring Camp Railroads almost daily in the twilight hours before the park officially opens.

As part of a whirlwind three-day tour between Los Angeles and San Francisco, a group called Sea Tours departs from Monterey early each morning and arrives at Roaring Camp. Usually, they take a quick 40-minute train ride to Rincon aboard the Santa Cruz Big Trees & Pacific line before being whisked away northward. The groups give the City of Santa Cruz a complete skip.

The recent winter storms have shortened these excursion rides but not ended them. Since January, the special early morning excursions have taken the tourist groups either past Mount Hermon to the north or south into San Lorenzo Gorge to Inspiration Point. The highlights of the trip are the redwood forests and the river or Bean Creek, depending on the journey.
Capitol Corridor to pass through Pajaro
Following a tax boost from the recent November election, plans to extend Caltrain's Capitol Corridor south to Salinas are now in the works. Contracts are already being signed for demolition crews who will remove existing portions of track to facilitate the upgrade of the entire line between Gilroy and Salinas.

Although this project will not immediately benefit Santa Cruz County, plans are in place to upgrade the stations at Watsonville Junction and Castroville for future use as passenger hubs for people commuting along restored Santa Cruz and Monterey branch lines. The Santa Cruz Branch line, owned by the county and operated by Iowa Pacific Holdings, has been involved in a long-term feasibility study to assess, among other things, the merits of restoring passenger service to the county. Monterey County, meanwhile, has a larger challenge ahead due to the repurposing of their trackage as a rail trail and heavier local resistance.

Web Register:

Facebook Chatter (/groups/sctrains)

Continuous – Thanks to photographer Howard Cohen for keeping everybody abreast of the Santa Cruz & Monterey Bay Railways operations this past winter. Other frequent photographic contributors include Gary McCourt, Dom Blevins, Bill Dawkins, Brian Bergtold, and Janie Soito. Dec. 12 – William Turner shared a humorous video of a Canadian train plowing through snow-covered tracks. Dec. 20 – Dale Phelps shared an hour-long documentary produced by Bruce MacGregor on the railroad car manufacturing business of Thomas and Martin Carter in the 1870s. The full documentary can be found here. Dec. 23 – Dana Bagshaw informed visitors that the Santa Cruz Museum of Art & History at the McPherson Center has a toy railroad display running for the holiday season. Howard Cohen also noted an increase in boys crossing the Soquel Creek bridge over Capitola Village, warning the public that this is both illegal and highly dangerous. Dec. 26 – Soito shared a video recorded by a drone of the Santa Cruz Big Trees & Pacific's seasonal Holiday Lights Train as it drove down Beach Street toward the wye. The video can be viewed here. Trevor Park of Treefrogflag Productions also shared his half-hour documentary about the return of passenger service to Santa Cruz County, which is available here. Jan. 2 – Ian Applegate shared a special New Years’ Eve video of the Holiday Lights Train, available here. Jan. 8 – Derek Whaley shared his interview with John Abatecola at TSG Multimedia, available here. Cohen also shared photographs of tank cars that are currently being stored on the Santa Cruz Branch Line, prompting a discussion between members on the merits of hiding Union Pacific rolling stock on unused local track. Jan. 11 – A mysterious train whistle heard across Santa Cruz prompted a long, somewhat conspiracy-laden conversation over train whistles on cars and Trail Now! advocates attempting to sabotage local railroading. Jan. 12 – Dawkins shared video footage of the century-old causeway at Wrights still being used to divert water in the recent winter storms. The video is available here. Jan. 30 – Dawkins shared a photograph of a South Pacific Coast Railroad pile-driver, prompting a discussion on the construction of the railroad over the mountains. Feb. 7 – Whaley shared an LA Times article about the end of government-sponsored rail projects in California. Dwight Ennis, in response, gave an excerpt from a San José Mercury News article explaining precisely why rail projects are not profitable or feasible currently. Whaley also advocated for the creation of a digital railroad journey using Unity, which prompted Dawkins to provide the following link to a digital recreation of the route between Felton and Boulder Creek. Feb. 12 – Dawkins recommended setting up temporary passenger service between Santa Cruz and Pajaro due to the closure of numerous roads throughout the county. Feb. 13 – James Galleguillos recommended the Railroad Park Resort in Dunsmuir to people wanting to spend the night in an old converted railroad car. Feb. 16 – James Davey shared a video of a Union Pacific train passing in front of the Boardwalk in 2004. Feb. 17 – Dawkins shared a photograph of a collision in Santa Clara in 1903 between Southern Pacific and South Pacific Coast trains. Feb. 23 – Tom Clark shared photographs of a derailment near Manresa State Beach in 1978 (see article above).


Recent SantaCruzTrains.com articles:

DEC. 16 – Sea Pride Packing Corporation

DEC. 23 – Carmel Canning Company

DEC. 30 – Monterey Fish Products

JAN. 6 – Roller Coasters at the SC Beach Boardwalk

JAN. 13 – Custom House Packing Corporation

JAN. 27 – Castroville Freight Yard

FEB. 3 – McGowans Nos. 1 and 2

FEB. 10 – Petersen

FEB. 17 – Pajaro

FEB. 24 – Trafton

Monthly Timetable:

MARCH 
Billy Jones Wildcat Railroad
Train Rides
Mar. 1-14: Weekends 11:00am-3:00pm
Mar. 15-31: Weekends 10:30am-4:30pm

Wednesdays 10:30am-3:00pm
Roundtrip from the Billy Jones Depot kiosk

Monterey & Salinas Valley Railroad Museum
Open House
Mar. 3: 5:00–8:00pm
Mar. 4-5: 10:00am–4:00pm

Regional Transportation Commission (RTC)
RTC Meeting
Mar. 2: 9:00am @ County Board of Supervisors Chambers

Transportation Policy Workshop
Mar. 16: 9:00am @ TBA

Roaring Camp Railroads
Train Rides
Mar. 1-31: Daily @ 12:30pm [Steam only on weekends]
Roundtrip from Roaring Camp Station

Rain Forest Weekends
Mar. 1-26: Every weekend

Santa Cruz Big Trees & Pacific Railway
Beach Train
Mar. 30-31: Daily
Departs from Roaring Camp Station & Boardwalk

Santa Cruz & Monterey Bay Railway
Not operating

Swanton Pacific Railroad
Work Day
Mar. 11-12
Come volunteer and ride the trains!

APRIL
Billy Jones Wildcat Railroad
Train Rides
Weekends 10:30am-4:30pm

Wednesdays 10:30am-3:00pm
Roundtrip from the Billy Jones Depot kiosk

Monterey & Salinas Valley Railroad Museum
Open House
Apr. 7: 5:00–8:00pm
Apr. 8-9: 10:00am–4:00pm

Regional Transportation Commission (RTC)
RTC Meeting
Apr. 6: 9:00am @ TBA

Transportation Policy Workshop
Apr. 20: 9:00am @ TBA

Roaring Camp Railroads
Train Rides
Apr. 1-30: Weekdays @ 11:00am

Weekends @ 11:00am, 12:30pm
Roundtrip from Roaring Camp Station

Model Railroad Exhibit
Apr. 8-9 @ at the General Store exhibition space

Eggstraordinary Easter Egg Hunt
Apr. 15-16
Train rides with an Easter egg hunt on Bear Mountain

Santa Cruz Big Trees & Pacific Railway
Beach Train
Apr. 1-30: Daily
Departs from Roaring Camp Station & Boardwalk

Santa Cruz & Monterey Bay Railway
Not operating

Swanton Pacific Railroad
Work Day
Apr. 8-9, 22
Come volunteer and ride the trains!

MAY
Billy Jones Wildcat Railroad
Train Rides
Weekends 10:30am-4:30pm

Wednesdays 10:30am-3:00pm
Roundtrip from the Billy Jones Depot kiosk

Monterey & Salinas Valley Railroad Museum
Open House
May 5: 5:00–8:00pm
May 6-7: 10:00am–4:00pm

Regional Transportation Commission (RTC)
RTC Meeting
May 4: 9:00am @ TBA

Transportation Policy Workshop
May 18: 9:00am @ TBA

Roaring Camp Railroads
Train Rides
May 1-26, 30-31: Weekdays @ 11:00am

Weekends @ 11:00am, 12:30pm, 2:00
May 27-29: 11:00am, 12:30pm, 2:00, 3:30
Roundtrip from Roaring Camp Station

Annual Civil War Battles & Encampment
May 27-29: Activities across Roaring Camp

Santa Cruz Big Trees & Pacific Railway
Beach Train
May 1-31: Daily
Departs from Roaring Camp Station & Boardwalk

Santa Cruz & Monterey Bay Railway
Not operating

Swanton Pacific Railroad
Work Day
May 13-14, 27-28
Come volunteer and ride the trains!

Imprint: Derek R. Whaley, editor. For submissions, email author@santacruztrains.com.

© 2016-2017 Derek R. Whaley. All rights reserved.