Santa Cruz Trains

Down the track 1.6 miles from Pacific Grove and its relatively large freight yard was the much smaller Asilomar flag-stop, the last passenger station along the line. Unlike all of the other stops along the Pacific Grove Extension of the Monterey Branch of the Southern Pacific Railroad's Coast Division, Asilomar was a late addition, only added as a stop when the Asilomar Conference Center first opened its doors in 1913.

A group of camp girls at Asilomar, June 1916. Photo by Heidrick Photo Studio. (State Parks)

The inside of the Phoebe Apperson Hearst Social Hall, c. 1920. (State Parks)

In the late 19th century, the Young Women's Christian Association (YWCA) began operating in the Monterey Bay area. In 1897, a group of women representing the Pacific Coast Field Committee of the YWCA decided that it was interested in holding an annual retreat somewhere in the area, choosing the Hotel Capitola near Santa Cruz for its venue from 1900 to 1911. In 1912, Hotel Capitola burned to the ground and the women were forced to look elsewhere for a conference center. That year, a tent city was erected in Livermore for the conference, but all of that material was later transferred to a property in Pacific Grove. The Pacific Improvement Company, the real estate subsidiary of Southern Pacific Railroad, donated 30 acres to the women at a field near the beach. They were required to build substantive structures within the first ten years of the lease, and they had to pay all property taxes for the land. Julia Morgan, a female architect from San Francisco, was hired to build the conference center, while Phoebe Apperson Hearst (mother of William Randolph Hearst) provided much of the funding and materials. The name Asilomar was chosen after a contest was held among attendees that first year. It's name means "refuge by the sea". On August 7, 1913, Asilomar was officially dedicated. Ellen Browning Scripps expanded the facility in 1916 by purchasing 20 more acres from the Pacific Improvement Company. It began operating year-round after that, although the summer was always its busiest season when the YWCA ran camps for girls and leadership conferences.

Asilomar Station shelter with luggage trolly, c. 1920.

Naturally, the railroad came soon afterwards. The Pacific Grove Extension already passed beside the conference center, terminating just 0.1 miles away at Lake Majella and Moss Beach. Asilomar Beach was the name given to the beach next door which sat upon the YWCA land. As early as 1913, the railroad delivered passengers to Asilomar, although the precise date that regular passenger service began is not known to this historian. By the early 1920s, the station functioned as a seasonal passenger stop, although it probably offered flag-service year-round, and an occasional freight stop. The specific nature of the freight at Asilomar is not known, although it likely was related to the business at Lake Majella. Indeed, Asilomar acted as the switch for an 8-car (~400 foot) spur from as early as 1928. This spur was primarily for cars loaded with sand from Moss Beach. A D-class freight platform was also there, although no other services were offered for freight. The siding at Asilomar grew over the years, eventually maxing-out at 30 car-lengths (1,500 feet), although this was likely split between the siding and a spur, the latter of which is visible in some photographs. The spur seems to have been short and removed in the 1940s as the track-length condensed to 27 car-lengths (1,325 feet), which it remained until the line was abandoned.

Phoebe Apperson Hearst Social Hall, built in 1913. (State Parks)

Passenger service was offered via a seasonal passenger agency and telephone office, although the specific nature of this station is not presently known. The Great Depression had an effect on Asilomar and the YWCA, no longer able to pay its debts, was forced to close the facility in January 1934. The Depression, though, meant that nobody wanted to purchase the facility, so the Asilomar Committee continued to maintain the grounds during these years. Passenger service to the stop continued until 1940, but the original station structure, if ever there was one, was replaced with a small generic passenger shelter in the early 1930s. With the closure of Asilomar, the shelter sat abandoned beside the tracks, the station only catering to the random passenger flag and freight. The shelter was dismantled or relocated at some point in time, although somebody has since built a recreation of the original and installed it near the station site. Railroad service past Asilomar continued intermittently until 1978 when the tracks were reduced to Seaside. The right-of-way in this area has since become a public bike trail.

Asilomar Station in 1974 with a pair of sand hoppers parked on the tracks in the distant background.

In 1936, David and Paulsen Visel ran Asilomar as a motel until 1940, after which the National Youth Authority used it as a training came. World War II caused the center to be converted into an overflow motel for visitors to Fort Ord and the Presidio. By 1947, the YWCA had regained enough funds to reopen the conference center, finally making money like it never had before. It has been in continuous operation ever since. In 1956, Asilomar became a California State Park, with its conference center leased to the Pacific Grove Association. In 1969, Pacific Grove transferred its lease to the new Pacific Grove-Asilomar Operating Corporation, a special company specifically established to keep Asilomar operating while protecting its surrounding environment. The property was more than doubled in size to provide a better conservation area around it, and now there is an ongoing program in place to maintain the dune habitat on the beach, which are now called the Asilomar Dune Natural Preserve. In 1987, the original structures at Asilomar were declared National Historic Landmarks.

Asilomar Station on the conference
grounds today.

Official Railroad Information:
Asilomar Station was located 129.9 miles from San Francisco via Castroville, Watsonville Junction, Gilroy, and San José. It was also 0.1 miles from the Lake Majella end-of-track. It was established around 1913 and was operated seasonally. Freight service to the station was in place by 1926 and catered primarily to the Lake Majella/Moss Beach sand quarry. To support this industry, a siding of 1,325 feet was erected, with a shorter 3-car (~175 foot) spur built across from the passenger shelter. Originally, a passenger agency office and telephone were at the shelter. The office closed when passenger service ended around 1940 and the shelter was relocated to within the conference grounds. The station itself remained on timetables, sometimes as a full stop, often as an Additional Station, until 1978 when the line was truncated to Seaside.

Geo-Coordinates & Access Rights:
36.619˚N, 121.933˚W

The site of Asilomar Station is roughly where the bike trail crosses over Sinex Avenue, just outside the main entrance to Asilomar Conference Grounds. The shelter structure has been rebuilt and sits near the site of the original structure with a sign atop its roof.

Citations & Credits:

"Asilomar State Beach". California Department of Parks and Recreation.
"Nature & Architecture – A Love Story". Asilomar Conference Grounds.

The Lake Majella "V" that straddled the small collection yard for the quarry.
Source: Southern Pacific Railroad assessor's map, noting stations and tracks.

At the lonely end of the Pacific Grove Extension which lengthened the Southern Pacific Railroad's Monterey Branch sat Lake Majella Station. The purpose of the extension was always to reach the rich glass sands of Lake Majella, although the railroad advertised that it intended to connect Carmel to its railroad network. This latter feat was never accomplished and so the tracks ended in the bogs and 400-foot-high sand dunes of the tidal swamp that sat beside Moss Bay.

The main industry at Lake Majella was high-grade glass-quality quartz crystals, i.e., beach sand. This part of the Monterey Peninsula was blessed with sand dunes and those dunes located immediately around the tidal lake were composed entirely of this valuable product. Sand was processed at an on-site quarry where it was washed, dried, and bagged. The bags were then loaded into waiting freight cars that parked upon the two spurs, both of which acted as the end-of-track. The tracks extended deep into the area to an unrecorded terminus. In later years, bulldozers pushed the sand into hoppers which fed conveyor belts which then sent the sand to the processing plant. It was an efficient system where Southern Pacific boxcars waited beside the main processing center to export fully-processed product. Over the years, the sand was exported for sanding the railroad tracks, for use in glass for reconstructing San Francisco after the 1906 earthquake, for ceramics used in electrical devices, for roofing paper, for soap, and even to refill beaches elsewhere. In other words, it was a very popular commodity, which is probably why the operation continued until 1978.

The Del Monte sand processing center at Lake Majella, c. 1945. An SP boxcar sits in front of the facility, awaiting its load of sand bags for shipment out. Photograph by Julian P. Graham. (Pebble Beach Company – Lagorio Archives)

Railroad service to Lake Majella was opened around the start of 1890 and some form of sand quarrying would continue at the end-of-track until the truncation of the line to Seaside in 1978. Unsurprisingly, the primary purpose of the stop was for freight, and passenger service was limited to select local passenger trains that first year. The stop never featured on the Del Monte line or any other seasonal excursion services. Whether there was a passenger shelter at Lake Majella in those first two decades is unknown. The Pacific Improvement Company, a Southern Pacific subsidiary, appears to have operated the sand quarry until around 1906 for use with its railroad grading and track maintenance, but following the San Francisco Earthquake, the quarry was spun-off as a subsidiary, the Del Monte Sand Company.

Lake Majella tracks, showing an otherwise unlisted spur at right beside a hopper, 1949. Photo by Art Lloyd.

1898 Hotel Del Monte map. (Monterey Public Library)

The passenger shelter that was eventually constructed at Lake Majella was of the same style as that at Asilomar, suggesting that both were installed around 1913. Passenger service beyond Pacific Grove was always informal, but the presence of a shelter suggests that there was at least limited use there, probably by the quarry employees and the few locals who lived near there. The shelter was located along the eastern spur near Sunset Drive. It was a + -shaped ("Greek Cross") structure with a square peaked roof upon which the station sign was affixed. Identical shelters in the area were at Asilomar, Brackney, and Newell Junction.

The sand dunes at Moss Beach beside Lake Majella.

Despite the industrial nature of the Lake Majella area, the dunes themselves were considered by many to be quite picturesque and became a popular place for picknickers and artists otherwise spending their days at nearby Asilomar Conference Center. Boating and fishing in Spanish Bay were popular in early years, especially since the scenic Point Piños lighthouse was within sight. The area was also heavily wooded with pines and cyprus trees originally, although most of that was later logged out. In later years, these dunes would become a rallying call for conservationists critical of the Lake Majella quarry. Their preservation was one of the chief reasons why the sand quarrying operation at Lake Majella finally ended.

Lake Majella before heavy industry and development drained the lake and cleared the forests.

From the 1940s, the Hayward Lumber Company, which still exists at the site of Lake Majella Station, received loads of lumber freight via the railroad. They were the last customers that used the Pacific Grove Extension, receiving goods into early 1979. The abandonment of this section of track was approved by the Interstate Commerce Commission on December 29, 1978. Within a few months, most of the tracks to Seaside were pulled, although some were buried. Lake Majella only briefly was returned to nature. Not long after the closure of the sand quarry, The Inn at Spanish Bay, a part of the Pebble Beach Resorts consortium, was opened as a luxury resort and golf complex. Some of the dunes still sit uncomfortably around Spanish Bay, mostly between the resort and the Asilomar Conference grounds.

Official Railroad Information:

Lake Majella first appeared on Southern Pacific timetables in 1890 at the end of the Pacific Grove Extension. The station was located 130.0 miles from San Francisco via Castroville, Pajaro Junction, Gilroy, and San José, and it was also 0.1 miles from Asilomar. Agency books at the turn of the century listed the station as having a class-A freight platform, which means it also included a spur, but no other services were listed. This situation never changed. The spur was listed initially in the 1920 as a 51-car-length (~2,550 feet) stretch of track, however this listing disappeared in later years, possibly because the switch was more closely located at Asilomar, being just to the south of that stop. Passenger service to the stop continued until around 1940, when the stop became strictly for freight. The stop remained in frequent use until 1978 when the line was truncated to Seaside.

The sand quarry at Lake Majella, c. 1960. Photo by Pat Hathaway. (Fine Art America)

Geo-Coordinates & Access Rights:
36.616˚N, 121.934˚W

The site of Asilomar Station is now Hayward Lumber off of Sunset Drive. Lake Majella itself is now the Inn and Links at Spanish Bay resort, with the core hub of activity located roughly within the residential subdivision on the east side of that complex. The western spur of the track paralleled Crocker Road to the east and is now visible, albeit somewhat overgrown. The eastern spur ran through the east side of Hayward Lumber. Both tracks crossed Sunset Drive with their present right-of-ways flanking the Pacific Grove Self-Storage facility and the adjacent shopping center. Both spurs undoubtedly continued directly to the Lake Majella quarry, but unfortunately the Gold Links at Spanish Bay has developed over any remaining trace of those right-of-ways.

Citations & Credits:

The Board and Batten of the Pacific Grove Heritage Society. February/March 2004.
Rice, Walter, and Emiliano Echiverria. Images of Rail: Rails of California's Central Coast. Arcadia, 2008.
Seavey, Kent. Images of America: Pacific Grove. Arcadia, 2005.
"The Monterey Branch". Abandoned Rails.

Location of the Miller property beside the tracks near
Moro Cojo Slough, 1922 assessor map. (UC Santa Cruz)

In the early 1870s when the Southern Pacific Railroad first passed into the region of the lower Salinas Valley, it passed through Bolsa Nueva y Moro Cojo Ranch and over Moro Cojo Slough via a short bridge and fill with no stations or stops of note. This rancho had been founded in 1844 from the merger of three smaller land grands and was created for María Antonia Pico de Castro. The name means "new pocket and lame moor", which is a reference to the marshlands and the little pockets of solid land mixed throughout. Even after the railroad passed through the land, the situation remained unchanged and no stations were established between Elkhorn and Castroville.

Then, in 1906, on a site just to the north of the slough on the southeast side of Dolan Road, settled the Watsonville Rod & Gun Club. This establishment had been founded two years earlier along Elkhorn slough but it was able to lease 800 acres from the Miller and Griffin families, among others, beside the less popular Moro Cojo Slough. The group renamed itself "Miller's Gun Club" with Miller acting as president. They erected in the area a 18' by 28' clubhouse and sleep-out where up to twelve hunters could rest for the night. A six-horse barn was also build beside the clubhouse. The group met most Wednesdays and Sundays during duck-hunting season and was affiliated with the Santa Cruz Gun Club which leased the property immediately next door.

The history of the gun club becomes rather muddled after 1906, although it is known to have existed into the 1920s. When precisely Miller's Gun Club arose as a railroad stop is also sketchy. It was never a formalized stop, instead functioning as a private flag-stop for the club members. As such, it was located roughly 0.2 miles south of what would become the Moss Landing spur; however the two never coexisted. It was more properly located 2.3 miles south of Elkhorn, which was also primarily a gun club stop, albeit one with official station status from the railroad. Because of the scarcity of sources that mention the stop, it seems likely that it only appeared on select passenger timetable lists and was never published in Agency Books or employee timetables. In any event, the station disappeared by the end of the 1920s if not earlier. It likely had no platform, station structure, or even sign due to its private status.

A new Watsonville Rod & Gun Club still exists today, although its relationship with the former club is not presently known.

Official Railroad Information:
None presently known. Information derived from a working survey of the stations and stops compiled by Jim Fergusson.

Geo-Coordinates & Access Rights:
36.796˚N, 121.753˚W

The site of Miller's Gun Club stop is located on the southeast corner of Dolan Road where it crosses over the Union Pacific Railroad tracks. Access to the tracks themselves is illegal and the access road running beside the tracks are privately owned. However, the site of the stop can be seen from the bridge as a small farm equipment lot beside a dirt road.

Citations & Credits:

Fergusson, Jim. "California Railroads (1) – SL 181: Passenger Stations & Stops". www.railwaystationlists.co.uk. [PDF]
Hall, Frank. They Came to Shoot: A History of CA Duck Clubs and Wetland Conservation.
Nanney, Duncan. Personal correspondence and on-site exploration.
Woolfolk, Andrea. Elkhorn Slough Reserve. Personal correspondence (via Nanney).

For around twenty years, there sat on the east side of Elkhorn Slough along the mainline of the Southern Pacific Railroad's Coast Division a station that went by the simple name Lyda. Despite appearing on railroad timetables, albeit without any regularly-scheduled stops or associated facilities, literally nothing is known specifically about this stop except where it was located. Even the name is a bit of a mystery. It first appeared in Southern Pacific Railroad agency books in July 1916 and it disappeared from records between 1937 and 1940.

Speculation is really all that can be said about this station. The name may derive from a local property owner or from the actress, Lyda Borelli, who was very popular in the mid-1910s. The purpose of the station, being located on solid land and surrounded by Elkhorn Slough, was probably as a duck-hunting lodge much like the Miller's Gun Club located further to the south. Remnants of a nearby pier have been discovered, although this specific pier appears to be more recent than the 1930s, but it does suggest that boating also occurred in the area, probably related to the gun club. That being said, the stop may have just as easily catered to the farm located on the east side of the tracks, although there does not appear to be much evidence for an industrial stop there and any industrial stop on the mainline would have had a spur or siding, neither of which Lyda had. The fact that the railroad had been built over forty years before the stop first appeared discounts the option that it was simply a private flag-stop for the local property owner—that arrangement would have existed since the installation of the tracks. One last option is that Lyda was involved in some capacity as a nitrate shipping site for material mined out of the nearby Azevedo Pond, although this seems unlikely for the 1910s.

Unfortunately, as has been the case with several stops in and around Santa Cruz County, this station remains a bit of a mystery and will likely remain that way until Monterey newspapers are made more easily available (i.e., outside of microfilm collections in public libraries) or somebody comes forward with new information.

Official Railroad Information:
Of the official railroad information accessible to this historian, Lyda only appears in one agency book and on one timetable. The agency book shows it first appearing in July 1916 at 104 miles south of San Francisco along the mainline. The timetable lists it in March 1937. It does not appear in the 1940 timetable. On the 1937 timetable, the station is shown to be 103.6 miles south of San Francisco via Watsonville Junction, Gilroy, and San José. Its nearest stations are Watsonville Junction to the north and Elkhorn to the south. No services or facilities are noted at the station nor was there a siding or a spur.

Geo-Coordinates & Access Rights:
36.85˚N, 121.76˚W

The site of Lyda Station is located along Elkhorn Slough, opposite a privately-owned field on Elkhorn Road. The right-of-way through this area is still in regular use by the Union Pacific Railroad but there are trails that follow alongside the tracks for those wishing to visit the site. Access is made most easily from Kirby Park to the south, at which point one follows the tracks northward alongside the slough for almost exactly one mile. The tracks will bank to the right once and then straighten out. When it does this a second time you are at the approximate location of Lyda. All of the land on the west side of the tracks are a part of the Elkhorn Slough Preserve. From Google Maps satellite view, it appears that nothing remains of the stop except, perhaps, a tiny clearing immediately to the east of the tracks and a small mound on the west side where a station shelter may have sat.

Citations & Credits:

Nanney, Duncan. Personal correspondence.
Southern Pacific Railroad documents.

At the southernmost tip of Santa Clara County near the junction of Santa Cruz, San Benito, and Monterey Counties, and along the northern bank of the Pajaro River midway between Gilroy and Watsonville once sat the minor industrial stop of Newria. It was here, in this remote area east of the tiny hamlet of Chittenden's, that the Standard Oil Company opened up an oil processing center under its subsidiary company, the Rialto Oil & Refining Company of San Francisco.

The endeavour began in April 1904 when the Watsonville Oil Company completed a pipeline to oil wells near Chittenden on the ranch of James P. Sargeant. The Watsonville company had been founded around 1896 and may have been prospecting in the hills around Chittenden since around that time since a lease from the Clara Land & Lumber Company dates to 1901. The original purpose of the wells was to fuel the steam trains and electric streetcars used by the Southern Pacific and the Watsonville Transportation Company in Watsonville and Pajaro. To process the oil, a small refinery was constructed beside the railroad tracks along a four-car spur, presumably in the large meadow on the south side of the mainline tracks at Newria. By July 1904, three oil wells were in operation here producing enough oil to fill three standard-gauged tanker cars per day. More wells were being drilled through to at least the end of the year. The newspapers at this time call the station "Rialto", although Southern Pacific Railroad records call it "Newria" from January 1905. Because of the presence of another Rialto in Southern California, it seams reasonable to assume that this site was named "New Rialto" or "NewRia".

Rumours published in the Santa Cruz Evening Sentinel in June 1904 stated that "it is the intention of the Southern Pacific company to make Rialto a station of importance and that in the near future both Sargent and Chittenden will be abandoned and all the business of the company for that section of the valley be transacted at Rialto." However, this seems very unlikely considering Chittenden was located directly alongside the road and the mainline track. In contrast, Newria was tucked away along a remote stretch of track beside which was only Sargent's farm.

Unfortunately for the Southern Pacific and the Rialto Oil Company, popular discontent intervened. Despite the initial popularity of the oil field and the wealth it was brining to nearby Watsonville, pollution began to seep into the Pajaro River almost immediately. It appears that Little Pescadero Creek, which ran just south of the refinery, was doubling as a wash from the wells up on the hills above Newria, and the runoff was fouling the water near town. In December 1905, the people of Watsonville took the Rialto Oil & Refining Company to court in Santa Cruz, accusing it of pollution and injuring the health of people and grazing stock. While the prosecution had no problem finding witnesses, the defense found virtually none. On January 4, 1906, the Newria refinery closed its doors permanently. Interestingly, the trial may not have dealt the company its death blow, at least not directly. Instead, it appears that the plant may have failed to pay its rents to the Sargent family and was also unable to pay its legal fees for the trial. Regardless, the company closed its doors permanently and Newria became a thing of the past.

During the 1906 earthquake, multiple slides were reported in the Newria area. This was only made worse the next year when terrible late winter storms crippled the mainline in the area. It can be supposed that this double-damage further decreased the likelihood that the facility would resume operations. Newria disappeared from Southern Pacific agency books in January 1908, leaving barely a memory behind of what was supposed to be the central rail hub of Chittenden Pass. It is possible that the Watsonville Oil Company continued to drill wells in the area until 1948, when the company was abandoned, but refining of that oil was done elsewhere and a stop was no longer required in the area.

Official Railroad Information:
Newria first appeared in Southern Pacific Coast Division agency books on January 1, 1905, as a private freight stop. It only remained on timetables for a scant three years, disappearing in the January 1908 agency book. It is not clear to this historian if Newria ever appeared in employee or public timetables, but considering the nature of the stop, this seems unlikely.

Geo-Coordinates & Access Rights:
36.898˚N, 121.575˚W

The site of Newria is on the north bank of the Pajaro River just west of Sargent Creek and east of Pescadero Creek. The site is only accessible by following the railroad tracks from Chittenden to the west, which is both highly dangerous and illegal. The station site is at the foot of a grassy hill and beside a large meadow created by a sharp bend in the adjacent river. Chittenden Road (CA 129) is directly across the river on the south bank.

Citations & Credits:

Santa Cruz Weekly, Morning, and Evening Sentinels, 1904-1907.

Betabel station on the 1915 USGS Map.

Claus Spreckels was the king of the sugar-beet business in the San Juan, Pajaro, and Salinas Valleys at the turn of the twentieth century but he had a problem: many of his fields were nowhere near a local railroad. Enter Betabel Station. When the Southern Pacific Railroad's Coast Division mainline was first constructed through the Pajaro Valley in 1871, it skirted the northern side of the Santa Cruz Mountains before cutting south to Salinas from Pajaro. Unfortunately, this stranded many of Spreckels' fields in between. For many years, nothing was done about this issue and the local farmers just had to regularly cart their goods to Chittenden or Sargent stations along the mainline. Spreckels successfully financed for the lower Pajaro Valley (i.e., the Watsonville area) the Santa Cruz Railroad by 1876 and he constructed in the Salinas area the Pajaro Valley Consolidated Railroad in 1897. This left the San Juan Valley the only major area without railroad service as of that year.

Betabel was the short-term solution to this problem. The station, named after an uncommon Spanish name for a sugar-beet, first entered the scene at some point in 1896. By 1897, it had become the primary shipping hub for all San Juan Valley sugar-beets farmers. The station, inconveniently located on the north bank of the Pajaro River and above the confluence of the San Benito River into the Pajaro meant that a long spur was required that crossed over the confluence via a truss bridge and stopped immediately beside the county road (modern Betabel Road), making delivery of goods especially easy for farmers. While the stop does not appear to have had any offices, it was classified as a class-B station which meant it had a freight platform and, most likely, a holding spur or siding. The 1915 USGS map shows the long spur and the tracks appear thicker in the area between Sargent Creek and the stop, suggesting there was a siding there.

The truss bridge over the Pajaro River at Betabel, c. 1897. (History San José)

The station remained predominately a beet shipping station for the entire first decade of the 1900s. In 1903, a grower's association was founded to negotiate rates for using the Betabel spur, with a threat to discontinue their contract with Spreckels if their demands were not met. Things apparently went well for the next year, rumours abounded that the Southern Pacific planned to abandon both Chittenden and Sargents stations due to the increased importance of Betabel to the line. A month later, the real reason for this was revealed: oil was discovered in the hills above Betabel. According to the Sentinel, the Watsonville Oil Company had constructed an oil refinery at Betabel (although it seems more likely it was at Rialto/Newria slightly to the west). In any case, the plans to abandoned Sargents were made certain that year, but that station remained on timetables for years afterwards suggesting there was at least some local resistance.

By December 1905, news was quickly spreading that the Southern Pacific Company intended to extend a line south to San Juan Bautista to better patronize the farmers in that area. There was already an SP line to Tres Pinos, but it went away from the farmers. Where this proposed line was to branch off from was open to speculation, but one excited reporter in February 1906 called the short spur across the Pajaro River both the "Betabel branch" and the "Betabel line", implying it would be extended into a full SP branch. Further speculation in November 1906 suggested that Betabel would be converted into a formal passenger and freight station acting as the regional hub and the gateway to the Betabel branch line to San Juan Bautista.

The primary purpose of Betabel promptly fell away once the San Juan Pacific Railway came into being in 1907. This line, which linked nearby Chittenden with San Juan Bautista via the western edge of the San Juan Valley, essentially made Betabel's original purpose redundant and ended any desire for the Southern Pacific to extend their own line to San Juan Bautista. The history of Betabel disappears from records after this point, except as the occasional reference point for road construction projects and railroad-related murders. The sugar-beet industry there ended abruptly in 1907 while the oil industry closed shop within a few years due to pollution to the Pajaro River, as discussed in the Newria article. Betabel remained on railroad timetables, a little-used industrial flag-stop, until around 1944. When its spur was removed is not known—the station may have remained in use until the early 1920s as a shipping point for locally-grown fruits, but a truck company offered their services in 1921 which promptly ended this service as well.

Official Railroad Information:
Betabel first appeared in Southern Pacific Railroad agency books on January 1, 1897. It was listed in 1899 as a class-B station, implying the presence of a freight platform and siding or spur, although no other services were listed there. A 1937 employee timetable reports that it had a 26-car (1,300 feet) siding and telephone services at the stop. It was located 89.0 miles from San Francisco via San José and 11.4 miles from Watsonville Junction. By 1940, the station had no scheduled stops, passenger or freight, although it was available as a flag-stop. The station remained in records until 1944, although it seems to have been out of use for many years by that time.

Geo-Coordinates & Access Rights:
36.897˚N, 121.562˚W

The site of Betabel Station is a marked by a hedgerow located 2,000 feet south of the Betabel RV Resort near the southern end of Betabel Road. The hedgerow itself is the former spur line. The switch for the spur was on the west bank of the Pajaro River beside the current Union Pacific mainline track which is today marked by a locally-used dirt road. There is no legal access to this site or even this side of the river and trespassing is not advised.

Citations & Credits:

Southern Pacific Railroad employee timetables and agency books, 1897 to 1940.
Chino Champion, 08/27/1897.
Santa Cruz (Morning/Evening) Sentinel, 1903-1917.
Oakland Tribune, 1921.
Nanney, Duncan. Personal correspondence.

Sargent's on the 1915 USGS survey map.

Unlike so many stops along the Southern Pacific Railroad's Coast Division, Sargent Station has been there since the beginning. The area began life in 1835 as Rancho Juristac, a 4,500 acre Mexican land grant owned by Antonio and Faustino German. Even in its earliest days, it was known for its oil field, which gave the land the nickname La Brea. In 1856, James P. Sargent, a New Hampshirite, along with his brothers Jacob, Roswell, and Bradley, purchased Rancho Juristac, renaming it Sargent's Ranch. By the time the property was confirmed by the California Public Land Commission in 1871, railroad tracks were already terminated beside the conveniently-named Sargent's Station. For the next three decades, this would be the stop that people detrained from for the six-mile stagecoach ride to San Juan Bautista.

Throughout much of its life, Sargent's served a triple purpose: it was an oil site requiring tanker cars to regularly haul out oil of various types, it was a sugar-beet plantation requiring regular shipments of beets to Watsonville and Spreckels, and it was a local passenger and freight station servicing the locals that lived on and around Sargent Ranch. To support the station, a siding was added which slowly extended in length until it reached a maximum extent of approximately 2,000 feet. By 1937, a double-track was extended from Gilroy and terminated just south of Sargent's. The station included a full passenger and freight office, telephone service, a class-A freight platform and beet-loading equipment, a train order register, and a water tower.

Firstly, oil had been known to be on the property since Mexican times and in the mid-1860s the first test wells were drilled in the hills over the Pajaro River. By the early 1870s, a number of wells on Sargent's Ranch were producing black gold, making the property quite valuable to its owners. In 1906, harder asphaltic oil (tar) was found in the soil and became a staple export for many years with over 780,000 barrels of assorted types of oil shipped out of the station making it the most profitable oil field in the Bay Area. In 1883, gold and silver was even discovered on the property, although not in significant enough quantities to warrant extensive extraction. Oil continued to be extracted from the ranch into the 1940s, with the last well closing in 1948

Secondly, the sugar-beet empire of Claus Spreckels spread up the San Juan Valley ending around Sargent, where the family and its tenants grew large crops of beets beginning in the early 1900s. This industry continued, albeit not through Spreckels, well into the 1950s and perhaps as late as the 1970s.

A structure at Sargent's, possibly showing the station although this building does not reflect the design of other Southern Pacific structures in the region. (Sargent Quarry)

Finally, the size of the station and the ranch, as well as its proximity to the river, made it an ideal vacation spot. Besides the locals who used the station regularly for transport and freight, visitors came regularly in the summer months to enjoy the beautiful ranch property. A small town located around the station supported both a hotel and a saloon, and there was an open-air dance pavilion for picnic parties. The area also supported hunting of all types and the nearby river was a popular fishing spot for vacationers.

The beet-loading tower sitting beside the abandoned spur at Sargent.

Threats to remove Sargent from railroad timetables date to as early as 1905 when Betabel was slated to be the new beet-gathering hub, but plans failed when the San Juan Pacific Railway made Betabel redundant. The station remained and grew over the years, with sugar-beets taking over as the primary good shipped out of the site. When precisely this product ceased being shipped from there is not known, but relics of the old beet conveyors still remain at the station site today. The station almost became a hub for a branch line that would pass through Pacheco Pass in 1907, but plans for the route fell through. In 1908, the agency permanently closed down, although passenger and freight service was still permitted so long that it was prepaid. After petitions to the government, the post office was allowed to remain opened however, meaning that passengers still had a waiting area for trains. The Spreckels Sugar Company, Watsonville Oil Company and Sargent Estate all were also allowed to operate out of the station structure for many more years. In October 1942, the station structure was finally torn down.

The Sargent family continued to maintain the property until 1956 when the last member of the family died. Attempts to develop the property failed many times before the property was transferred to a debt-collection agency. The majority of the property is now used for cattle grazing and hay farming, although there is a proposal by Sargent Quarry to repurpose a corner of it for gravel quarrying.

Official Railroad Information:
Sargent's first appeared in railroad timetables as early as 1869 as the terminus of the Southern Pacific Railroad. Extension of the line began the following year. By 1899, the stop had a freight and passenger agency office, a class A freight platform, telegraph services, and a four-car siding (~125 feet). The station was located 87.1 miles from San Francisco via San José. By 1937, the double-track from Gilroy terminated just south of Sargent (the "s" being removed from the name) while the spur had become a nearly 4,000-foot-long siding. A water tower was also now at the site while telegraph services were replaced with telephone. A train-order registry was kept at the station house. Many services began to disappear by the mid-1950s with only phone service remaining as of 1963. The siding, however, had been lengthened to 4,500 feet, but the double-track, though still remaining, appears to have gone out of use at this time. As late as 1974 the station was still listed as an official freight stop with an active phone and 4,395-foot siding, but it seems the station structures themselves had gone out of use. Officially, the station remains in Union Pacific Railroad records, but evidence from the station suggests that the stop has long been abandoned and both the siding and second track are overgrown and disconnected from the main line.

Geo-Coordinates & Access Rights:

The tracks at Sargent with the oil field in the background.

36.923˚N, 121.547˚W

The site of Sargent Station is accessible via a rarely-used right turn off of State Route 101 just south of Tar Spring Creek where the highway passes over the railroad tracks. Taking the exit, immediately turn left to parallel the tracks. A short distance down the old cement road will reveal the ruins of the station site, with a loading ramp and three heavily-graffited structures still standing on the right immediately by the still-surviving triple tracks located there. While accessing the structures is probably not going to bother anybody, remain off the tracks—the track furthest from the station is still in active regular use by the Union Pacific Railroad.

Citations & Credits:

"History". Sargent Quarry.
Santa Cruz (Morning/Evening/Weekly) Sentinel, 1869 to 1956.

Corporal on the 1955 USGS Map.

It should come as no surprise that the Southern Pacific Railroad had some fun when they named Sargent's northern neighbor "Corporal". This location is the newest station covered by Santa Cruz Trains, opening services only in January 1949. It never operated as a services passenger or freight stop but rather appears to be more of a stop of convenience due to its location at the southern end of the Gilroy double-track and the northern end of Sargent's trackage limits.

Unfortunately, the newness of this station does not help in identifying its purpose. The close proximity of many oil wells in the region, including some that are still active, suggests that this may have been a secondary oil-loading area located closer to the wells than Sargent 0.6 miles away. Alternatively, it could have originally serviced a short-lived agricultural or pastoral facility that is no longer in the vicinity, although this seems less likely. Third and most likely, it serves as a waiting point for trains switching from the double-track to the single line through Chittenden Pass, although the limited use the line sees (four trains daily, two in each direction) does not imply a high chance of collision in this area. Newspapers do not mention the stop and even many maps do not include it. Further research is required before the original purpose of Corporal Station is definitively known.

Official Railroad Information:
Corporal first appeared in Southern Pacific Railroad records on January 23, 1949. It is located 86.4 miles south of San Francisco via San José. The station was only ever a freight stop although for a while waiting passengers could flag passing trains informally. The station had no services except a station sign and a phone. The stop served as the northern end of the Sargent freight area and still serves as the southern end of the Gilroy Double-Track. The stop marked the beginning of the Automated Block Signal system to Castroville as well as the start of the centralised traffic control system to Logan. In 1996, the station was taken over by the Union Pacific which adjusted the milepost location to 83.1. The station is no longer in use but is still a registered stop on UP records.

Geo-Coordinates & Access Rights:
36.928˚N, 121.548˚W

Access to the Corporal site is surprisingly easy if you are heading southbound on State Route 101. Take the exit just after passing over Tar Spring Creek and the railroad tracks. From there, turn north and stop just before going under the freeway. At this location, you can see the double-track cutting off and heading north while the Sargent double track cuts back into the mainline (although it is now disconnected). A sign for Corporal is still in the area. The remnants for the grade crossing are also under the freeway since the concrete highway was once the original Highway 101. Considering these are still active tracks, caution is advised and do not trespass onto the tracks themselves.

Citations & Credits:

Nanney, Duncan. Personal correspondence.

Miller as located on the 1917 USGS Map

At the absolute southernmost end of the Santa Clara Valley sits the mostly forgotten—although still technically active—station of Miller. The station most likely dates to the earliest years of the Santa Clara & Pajaro Valley Railroad (soon the Southern Pacific Railroad) when the tracks passed beside Henry Miller's ranch in 1870. Miller was in fact Heinrich Kreiser, a German immigrant who stole the identity of a man named Henry Miller. Miller became a major cattle rancher in and around the Bay Area. At the Bloomfield Ranch south of Gilroy, Miller built a 44-room mansion in 1888 which acted as the center of a small railroad community. Around it were built livery stables, a blacksmith shop, granaries, a general store, and a train station. Miller also owned a mansion on Mount Madonna for many years.

Bloomfield Ranch, date unknown. (King Library)

Bloomfield Mansion at Miller's with a cattle herd in front. (Calisphere)

By the turn of the century, Miller's was a major cattle and agricultural shipping point in the area and the Miller family land stretched in all directions. At the top of the long siding at Miller's, the Southern Pacific designated a new station that went by the name of Nema (Spanish for "letter seal"—origin unknown). From this site a long spur went to the west to the base of the nearby Santa Cruz Mountains. The precise purpose for this spur is not presently known but the existence of a reservoir in the hills and the amount of oil located in these hills just to the south may act as clues. The fact that the tiny town of Miller's Station was located here suggests that Nema may have become a new station point for Miller, despite Miller remaining a stop along the main line. Today a private ranch still sits at the end of this spur site, although the tracks are now gone. Unfortunately very little can be found on Nema Station. The stop shut its doors in 1941 with the spur torn up a few years earlier.

Bloomfield Mansion at Miller's

Much more is known about Miller's Station, which became Miller in the late 1900s. Miller himself was one of the largest land owners in California by the time of his death in 1916. His estimated value was at $40 million. Following his death, his grandson George Nickel reincorporated the family company, Miller & Lux Corporation, into a holding and land development firm. A few members of the family continued to farm for many more years, but they appear to have lost influence in the lower Santa Clara Valley, selling its remaining assets in 1930. The family sold the rest of their holdings over the course of the following thirty years. The station has surprisingly remained on timetables continuously since 1870, although there is no longer any spur at the station and it is doubtful that it has been used for many years. A long freight shed alongside the tracks marks the site of the original station point.

Official Railroad Information:
Miller's Spur was an early station along the Southern Pacific Railroad's main line. When precisely it appeared is not presently known to this historian but it seems likely it was an original stop. In 1899, it occupied a long stretch of track between 84.2 and 84.4 miles south of San Francisco via San José. Sometime soon afterwards—no later than 1905—the northern end of this track was renamed Nema. Miller's had a A-class freight platform but had no other facilities listed at the site. It's spur sat on the west side of the tracks and was initially fairly short but by 1899 it stretched 0.2 miles and had become a long siding. By 1937, Nema sat at 84.1 miles south of San Francisco while Miller was at 84.4. An 18-car (~900 feet) spur ran along the western track. At Nema, a 28-car (~1,400 feet) spur ran to the southwest, ending immediately to the east of State Route 101. Extant USGS maps show that this spur forked at the end and included two additional spurs along its length, one staggered on either side of the track. According to the 1939 USGS map, Nema's long spur was removed entirely in the late 1930s. In 1940, both stations were demoted to "Additional Stations" although it appears nothing else changed; Nema was still listed as having a spur, although the length was no longer noted. Nema was formally abandoned on December 15, 1941. Miller remains in use officially, although it seems unlikely that it has seen service for many years. Both stations's spurs have long since been removed and no trace of them remains. The double-tracks from Gilroy pass directly beside the old freight building.

Geo-Coordinates & Access Rights:
36.958˚N, 121.545˚W (Miller)
36.963˚N, 121.544˚W (Nema)

The site of Miller Station is currently inaccessible to the public. It sits along a long stretch of double-track about 500 yards south of the crossing of Hollister Road over the tracks. Currently a long freight shed marks the site of the spur, although all trace of the spur itself appears to be gone. Nema Station, meanwhile was located just north of this crossing, with the spur paralleling Hollister Road on the north side. It crossed the road just at about the site of the highway on/off ramp. The farm that the station serviced still exists today and is located at the southeast corner of Highway 101 and Hollister Road. The Garlic Shop is across Hollister Road from this site.

Citations & Credits:

Igler, David. Industrial Cowboys: Miller & Lux and the Transformation of the Far West
Nanney, Duncan. Personal correspondence.
Salewske, Claudia. Images of America: Gilroy. Arcadia, 2003.
Southern Pacific Railroad agency books and employee timetables, 1899-1940.

Carnadero Station on the 1939 San Juan Bautista USGS Map.

In the open fields to the south of Gilroy sits the lone remnants of a little-used railroad station that goes by the name of Carnadero. Named after a Spanish word that means either "bait maker" or "butchering place", a likely reference to a nearby tributary of the Pajaro River called Carnadero Creek (or Uvas Creek), Carnadero Station first appeared in Southern Pacific Railroad records in 1871. Early that year, the railroad completed its track through the area on its way to Hollister and Tres Piños at the southern end of the Santa Clara Valley. Soon afterwards, Carnadero Station was established as the northern end of the Santa Clara & Pajaro Valley Railroad, a subsidiary of the Southern Pacific that intended to head first to Pajaro and then to Salinas. By 1873, the SC&PVRR became the main line of the railroad and the route to Tres Piños became a branch, which was cut back to Hollister in August 1942 (receiving approval for said truncation in March).

The area around Carnadero is the former Rancho Cañada de Las Uvas (Rancho Canyon of the Grapes), originally owned in 1842 by Lorenzo Pinedo. It was later sold to Bernard Murphy and it passed to his son Martin John Charles Murphy in 1860. It was his family that still owned the land when the railroad passed through. Pinedo and Murphy were both famous for growing grapes in the region, a practice that began in the mission days. Thus if any industry operated out of Carnadero, it was probably this. In contrast, the "butchering" reference in nearby Carnadero Creek actually dates to the Portola Expedition and, therefore, predates any later land usage. Local agricultural and pastoral farms sprang up along the railroad track in the area, so it should not be surprising to find a freight platform at Carnadero in 1899. What precisely was shipped out from this point is not known, but the numerous buildings are shown to sit alongside the tracks, Carnadero Avenue, and Carnadero Creek from the 1913 to 1939 USGS survey maps. Some maps even suggest an unincorporated township resided along the state highway which was about a mile away from the station.

For many years the station saw a lot of passing trains, but by the 1930s service to the stop had all but ceased. Except for some freight and local passenger customers, the station does not appear to have attracted any significant groups. Picnickers preferred more scenic spots such as Sargent or Chittenden, while most freight customers could just as easily go to Gilroy three miles to the north. The station remained on timetables but only as a flag-stop. When the double-track was installed from Gilroy to Sargent, any siding or spur at Carnadero was removed and none is ever shown on USGS maps. The truncation of the Tres Piños Branch to Hollister in 1942 also likely reduced active traffic at the stop. Although Carnadero remains a registered station on Union Pacific Railroad timetables, it is unlikely that it receives regular customers and there are currently no facilities at the station to permit freight or passenger loading. It seems to remain a stop only because of the Hollister Branch.

Official Railroad Information:
Carnaderos was established around June 1871 along the mainline of the Southern Pacific Railroad track. In November 1871, the route to Pajaro was opened with its junction to the main line at Carnadero. In August 1873, the Pajaro route became the main line and the other route became the Tres Piños Branch (Hollister Branch from August 1942 to today). As of 1899, Carnadero had a C-class freight station, which implies a siding or a spur and a small freight platform but no formal service. The presence of a station structure at any time in its history is not known. The station was located 83.2 miles from San Francisco via San José. By 1937 a double-track running from Gilroy to Sargent passed through Carnadero, probably replacing the siding or spur that was originally there as it is no longer referenced. A phone was the only listed service at the stop and no passenger or freight stops were scheduled, although the station served as a flag-stop for all passing passenger trains. Little has changed at Carnadero since 1940 and it still remains an officially-registered Union Pacific Railroad station and the junction for the Hollister Branch.

Geo-Coordinates & Access Rights:
36.976˚N, 121.543˚W

Carnadero Station is located at the break of Carnadero Avenue, a dirt road south of Gilroy. Take the Bolsa Road exit on State Route 101 and head south on Bolsa Road—Carnadero Ave will be on the left (east). Beside the tracks is a large clearing on either side of the road and the triple-track junction of the Hollister Branch with the mainline. It is unclear what the ownership status of the surrounding property is so caution is advised. As usual, this is an active track so do not trespass on or across the tracks.

Citations & Credits:

Nanney, Duncan. Personal correspondence.
Robertson, Donald B. Encylopedia of Western Railroad History: Oregon, Washington. Caxton Press, 1986.

The West Side of Santa Cruz was rarely as busy in regards to railroading activity as other parts of the county, but one industry dominated the scene beside Antonelli Pond from 1908 to 1923: the San Vicente Lumber Company's planing mill. In fact, Moore Creek was dammed to become a mill pond for precisely that reason and was only called Antonelli Pond in later years. The original name was Mazzoni Pond. The pond was flanked on the north and the south by two separate railroad lines. To the north was the Coast Line Railroad mainline, owned by the Southern Pacific Railroad and built in 1907. To the south was the Ocean Shore Electric Railroad mainline, built a two years earlier. Neither railroad had a need to establish a stop there until 1908 when the San Vicente Lumber Mill moved in, at which point the Coast Line established Orby and the Ocean Shore, Rapetti. Rapetti was named after Louis Rapetti who owned the property before selling it to the lumber company.

1917 Sanborn Fire Insurance map showing the San Vicente Mill at Rapetti. (UCSC Digital Collections)

Of the two stops, Rapetti was the busier because the Ocean Shore Railroad was the connected directly to the redwood tracts up above San Vicente Creek near Swanton. In fact, when the Ocean Shore Railroad formally abandoned the tracks in 1921, the San Vicente Lumber Company purchased the entire Southern Division of the railroad and operated it for another two years, only abandoning the tracks in 1923. Although the tracks never connected to San Francisco, the Ocean Shore Railroad always branded itself a passenger and freight system so it makes sense that Rapetti maintained a full depot at its stop. The depot included a short-lived post office (operating April 6, 1911, to December 31, 1912), a general store, and a company management office, all of which sat on the north side of the tracks. To the south of the tracks, a small company village was built composed of eighteen small cottages and a boarding house for seasonal unmarried laborers.

The San Vicente Lumber Company mill at Rapetti and Orby, c. 1910. Ocean Shore tracks in the foreground.

The mill itself functioned in multiple capacities, serving as both a fully-operating planing mill and the Ocean Shore Railroad's maintenance and storage yard. A long looping track ran from the station to the west, passing immediately beside the mill before looping back to the east where it met the Southern Pacific track. In addition to the switchback at the Southern Pacific Union Depot, this was the only other location where the Southern Pacific and Ocean Shore tracks had an interchange, and this was the easier and more practical of the two junctions. Near the southern end of the half-circle loop sat a short spur for the railroad's maintenance shop and a car shed for overnight storage of the railroad's Southern Division locomotives. The Ocean Shore kept enough trackage here to support 25 cars, suggesting more sidings or spurs may have existed than the map above suggests. Two more spurs were located off of the Southern Pacific end of the track terminating directly beside the mill at the mill pond. Although the map above does not show it, it seems almost certain that the Ocean Shore's southern turntable was at Rapetti as well, probably just beyond the car maintenance shed or beside the storage shed. No other place along the line in Santa Cruz could support a turntable and the trains most certainly did not back up for the fifteen miles to Swanton.

San Vicente Lumber Company mill, 1921. (Photo by Emanuel Fritz) [Bancroft Library]

The mill was divided between two primary facilities: the large saw mill and the smaller planing mill. The planing mill was located directly to the north of the Ocean Shore car shed, with numerous lumber sheds lining the east side of the loop track. The larger saw mill was to the west of the loop beside the pond with conveyors reaching into the pond to bring in logs for processing. A shingle mill to create shingles, railroad ties, grape stakes, and other split stuff was also maintained as a part of this larger structure. The arrangement of the facility and the tracks suggests that the Ocean Shore was responsible for delivering the logs to the mill and the Southern Pacific was responsible for taking the logs to market via one of their two routes out of the county, hence the tracks were located directly beside the shingle mill for easy loading.

Lumber sorting bins at the end of the Southern Pacific Railroad spurs beside the San Vicente Lumber Company mill at Rapetti. A flatcar can be seen at right being loaded, 1921. (Photo by Emanuel Fritz) [Bancroft Library]

When the Ocean Shore Railroad went bankrupt in summer 1920, the milling company leased the tracks and rolling stock so they could finish harvesting the redwood alongside San Vicente Creek and its many tributaries. That task took them just to the end of 1923. In early 1924, the tracks were abandoned and the rolling stock was sold off. The tracks were removed over the following years, eventually becoming Delaware Avenue below the former mill. The mill was dismantled and the lot made vacant until new businesses moved onto the site the 1960s. The site now serves as the college administrative building for University of California, Santa Cruz.

The lumber mill from Antonelli Pond in its final years, 1921. [Bancroft Library]

Official Railroad Information:
Very few timetables survive for the Ocean Shore Railroad but some essential facts are known. The station did not appear in company information until after August 1907 and probably not until 1908. Rapetti was located 2.0 miles from the Santa Cruz Beach Depot, which sat above the bluff beside the Southern Pacific Union Depot yard. Besides having a engine house and a maintenance yard, it likely included a turntable and additional spurs, the total of which could hold 25 standard-gauged cars. A station structure was located north of the tracks beside Cliff Street (now Natural Bridges Drive) and freight-unloading platforms were located to the north of the car shed. The station was the last to be abandoned along the Ocean Shore Railroad's Southern Division, abandoned permanently in December 1923 when the San Vicente Lumber Company closed its mill.

Geo-Coordinates & Access Rights:
36.954˚N, 122.057˚W

The site of Rapetti Station is the northwest corner of Natural Bridges Drive (originally Cliff Drive) and Delaware Avenue (originally the Ocean Shore Railroad right-of-way). The mill complex occupied the entire property on the west side of Natural Bridges Drive to the still-present Union Pacific Railroad tracks. While a trestle bridge still crosses Moore Creek on the north side of Antonelli Pond, the trestle that once occupied the south side has since been replaced with a fill. Although technically private property, it is unlikely that anybody will stop you from looking around the area. All evidence of the Ocean Shore Railroad and the mill are now gone except for some barely visible piers left over from the mill's conveyor system that still reside in the middle of the pond.

Citations & Credits:

Clark, Donald. Santa Cruz County Place Names: A Geographical Dictionary.

In the tiny northern Santa Cruz County hamlet of Swanton—once the terminus of the Ocean Shore Railroad until 1920—sits the quaint miniature Swanton Pacific Railroad, owned by California Polytechnic State University San Luis Obispo (CalPoly) and operated by the Swanton Pacific Railroad Society.

Swanton Pacific is a 19-inch gauge miniature railroad that was founded by Albert "Al" Smith, former mayor of Los Gatos and president of Orchard Supply Hardware, back in 1979. The railroad's three steam locomotives are all 1/3 scale steam engines built by Louis M. MacDermot for the Overfair Railway between 1913 and 1915 (a fourth non-operable engine now sits in the foyer of the California State Railroad Museum). This railway featured in the Panama-Pacific International Exposition at San Francisco. The engines went into disuse after the exposition and sat in storage for over sixty years. Smith, who previously worked for the Southern Pacific Railroad, purchased the trio at auction and began building the railroad on his ranch along Scott Creek north of Davenport. Two additional engines, the steam-powered 1500 (another MacDermot model, although smaller than the others) and the diesel 502, were added to the collection in later years. Sixty-two other pieces of rolling stock provide passengers with seats for their adventures.

A locomotive rounding a bend at Swanton Pacific Ranch.
(Lawrence Biemiller)

The 1500 switch engine at the Panama-Pacific International Exposition.
(Swanton Pacific Railroad Facebook page)

The site of Swanton Pacific Ranch, which Smith purchased in 1978, has a long history. Originally the 1843 Rancho Agua Puerca y las Trancas (Hog Water and the Bars), the property fell into the hands of Ramon Rodriguez and Francisco Alviso. After California became a state, the land transferred to James Archibald. In 1875, when Archibald died, the land was divided between Ambrogio Gianone and Joseph Bloom. All of these men used it primarily for farming and ranching. Fred Swanton purchased much of the water rights in the area in the 1880s and dammed Big Creek and Mill Creek to power Santa Cruz via his Central Coast Counties Gas & Electric Company. This operated into the new century until a fire destroyed the feeder flume. By this point, the settlement had taken on the name Laurel Grove. The Ocean Shore Railroad diverted a spur up Scotts Creek around 1908 to cater to the San Vicente Lumber Company lands above the village. Over the next fifteen years the company would harvest most of the timber on the east side of the creek. The Ocean Shore terminated at the Swanton Inn, which served as Swanton's post office, general store, hotel, and saloon. Because of this, the railroad named the station "Swanton", a name that stuck. After the railroad left in 1923 and the post office closed in 1930, the village declined into nothing more than a sparse population area. In 1938 the Poletti and Morelli families purchased the land from its previous owners, using it mostly for cattle and dairy. Eventually John and Bob Musitelli took over both properties. By the 1950s, a portion of the property was converted for use by the Boy Scouts of America as a summer camp. It was this property that Smith visited when he was young and which he purchased in 1978 to become the Swanton Pacific Ranch.

Louis MacDermot working on one of his engines before the International Exposition. (Swanton Pacific Facebook Page)

Three of the locomotives sitting outside the Swanton
Pacific roundhouse. (Local Wiki)

Swanton Pacific Ranch features a barn from 1874 and a cheese house dating to 1867, making it one of the oldest buildings in the county. The latter is on the County Register of Historical Buildings. Swanton Pacific Ranch was inherited by CalPoly in 1993 when Al Smith willed it to the university. The railroad remains a separate non-profit venture and railroad rides are always free, although the opportunities to visit the ranch are limited to specific dates and times. The railroad does run monthly volunteer work days which are open to the public. Check their website for more details or call them at 805-995-3659.

Citations:

Biemiller, Lawrence. "Stories from "The Chronicle": Cal Poly's Little Love Affair with Steam". The Chronicle of Higher Education. 2005.
Smith, Albert B. "Swanton Pacific Ranch: Mission & History". 1990.

At the northern end of Vasona Reservoir along today's University Avenue once sat the short-lived Parr's Spur Track. This stop first appeared in Southern Pacific Railroad agency books when it took over the South Pacific Coast Railway in 1887, suggesting it had probably existed since the beginning of the line in 1878. Jonathan Parr was an early settler in the area, owning 2,000 acres of land on Rancho Rinconada de los Gatos since 1856. Most of his land was used as a cattle pasture, since the prune orchards that the region became famous for did not enter the picture until the 20th century. Parr had six children, between whom the property was divided when he died. This caused an accounting problem, however, in that it is unknown who received the portion of land which included Parr's Spur. The spur itself was of unknown length and its precise location or which side of the track it sat are not known. The stop was removed from agency books in 1890, although it seems likely that it had been out of use for years by that time. Although the purpose for the stop has never been stated, it seems likely that it was used primarily for cattle shipments and as a private flagstop for the Parr family, since the tracks ran directly through their lands. All of the Parr children were deceased by 1900, possibly explaining why the spur was abandoned when it was.

A train passing near the historic site of Bermingham, March 11, 1939. Photo by Wilbur C. Whittaker. (Jim Vail Collection)

Portrait of Captain John Bermingham.

In 1900, a new customer moved in on or near the site of the spur. The California Powder Works, which had its primary facility at the mouth of the San Lorenzo Valley near Santa Cruz, erected a powder magazine on the site around that time. The Southern Pacific added the stop to its station books in 1901 and by 1907 it was appearing as a formal station in employee timetables. The new stop was named "Bermingham", after the president of the company Captain John Bermingham. Since the mountain section of track had opened in 1880, the CPW had used the railroad exclusively for the shipment of its powder, but some of that powder was used as the New Almaden Mines for blasting, which probably explained the need for a powder magazine here, less than three miles from said mines. Unfortunately, the magazine was not well-prepared for the 1906 San Francisco Earthquake. During the temblor, the magazine exploded, destroying the entire facility and probably most of the area around it. Wisely, the CPW decided against rebuilding there and the stop was abandoned by mid-1909 when the mountain track was reopened and the stops along the route reassessed. In the 1920s, the stop may have become host to Bulwer Station, however track measurements suggest that stop was 0.1 miles further to the north.

Official Railroad Information:
Very little is listed for Parr's Spur Track. It first appeared with no facilities listed in the 1888 Southern Pacific Railroad station book. By 1890, the spur was gone (unfortunately all copies of the 1889 station book appears to have been lost). The spur was located approximately 53 miles from San Francisco via Alameda Point.

Bermingham is better recorded, first appearing in the January 1901 station book. In 1902, it was listed as a B-class station, implying a spur or siding and a freight-loading platform. It was also in a section of track that was dual-gauged. The station was added to an employee timetable as "Bermingham (Spur)" in June 1907, listed at 53.0 miles from San Francisco via Alameda Point and 27.1 miles from Santa Cruz. The length of the spur at the station was 677 feet. No other facilities were listed there and the station did not receive any regularly-scheduled freight or passenger traffic, implying it was for private use only. In 1909, the distance from San Francisco was altered to match the new Los Altos Branch and was now only 52.1 miles from San Francisco, this time via Mayfield. The spur was also lengthened to 827 feet. The station disappeared from timetables in 1909 and from station books in January 1910.

Geo-Coordinates & Access Rights:
37.247˚N, 121.967˚W

Parr's Spur and, presumably, Bermingham were located approximately at the modern-day location of the Vasona Reservoir dam. The site itself is either under water or buried beneath the earthen fill. In context, University Avenue is the right-of-way, so it would have been directly to the east of the road, south of the Creekside Turf Sports Park field and before crossing Los Gatos Creek.

Citations & Credits:

Conaway, Peggy. Images of America: Los Gatos Generations. Arcadia Publishing, 2007.
Southern Pacific Railroad documents, California State Railroad Museum Archives.
Whaley, Derek. Santa Cruz Trains: Railroads of the Santa Cruz Mountains. Self-published, 2015.

Harvey West giving the final swing on the
golden spike, 1968. [Santa Cruz Sentinel]

There are many peculiar railroad-related enterprises that have passed through Santa Cruz County over the years. One such company was the miniature railroad that operated in Harvey West Municipal Park from 1968 until 1992. Harvey West Park itself was dedicated on May 30, 1959, on fifty acres of land on the north side of the City of Santa Cruz beside Pogonip. It was named after Harvey E. West, the son of old Loma Prieta Lumber Company tycoon and former county supervisor Ed West. Harvey himself was an employee in his youth of Frederick A. Hihn's milling operation on Laurel Creek before founding his own lumber hauling company upon returning from service in World War I. He moved out of the area in the 1930s and founded the Placerville Lumber Company in 1936. West lived until 1979, twenty years after his eponymous park was founded. The park was named for him for multiple reasons: he was a well-known and influential local into the 1930s, he donated great amounts of money to private and public organisations, and he arranged for the purchase of the properties that would make up Harvey West Park, presenting the larger part to the city in 1955 and the Wagner Grove in 1958. Wagner was the original American owner of the land whose descendants had sold it to West for the creation of the park.

In April 1968, notice was given to the city council that a man named Dan J. Hurt was being solicited to install his still-under-construction miniature railroad to the park. Hurt, a friend of West as well as a former US Navy admiral and a local model railroader, proposed a 170-foot-long loop track that would initially operate with a single locomotive and two passenger cars, which would be installed with accompanying authentic railroad sounds. The locomotive was modelled after a 1860s wood-burning engine, although it operated off of a diesel engine. The gauge of the track was to be 18 inches. Hurt was required as part of the lease agreement to erect an enclosed station house and ticket office to protect the rolling stock when the train was not operating. It was intended to operate daily in the summer and on weekends for the remainder of the year. Hurt planned to charge 10¢ per passenger per ride and called his enterprise the Sierra Nevada & Golden West Railroad.

One of the first rides of the Sierra Nevada & Golden West Railroad, July 1968. [SC Sentinel]

Retired Admiral Dan J. Hurt in a press
photo from 1973. [SC Sentinel]

The new railroad opened in late July 1968 and was staffed that summer by Hurt and by volunteers. Harvest West became involved in the construction, donating ties to the track and striking the golden spike during the dedication ceremony. Because of the donations and city funds, he was able to expand the track to 0.25 miles, or around 1,300 feet, which was much longer than the proposed length. It ran in a figure-eight pattern around a good portion of the park. The SN&GWRR departed the station every 20 minutes (implying an approximately 15 minute ride) and it could hold 20 passengers, plus the engineer. Because of the increased costs of the longer track and the need for more cars, the cost of each ride was set at 25¢ for children and 50¢ for adults. Hurt operated the train through the 1975 summer season and then the concession went up for sale.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, there was not a lot of demand for a miniature railroad linked to a public space. As part of the concession, the railroad included a snack bar and hamburger stand, both of which operated out of the ticket station. Hurt listed the train and its accoutrements for $11,000, although its final sale price is unknown.

The station booth and snack shack, c. 1970s.
[Doris Emerick Correll]

Alberto E. and Gayle Vincent finally took over operations for the 1976 season, changing the name to the more straightforward Sierra Nevada Railroad. In 1977, Robert O. and Virginia M. Mock took up the lease, operating it through the 1979 summer season before putting it up for sale again. In April 1980, Hamlet Char Broilers, owned by Gary Parsons, purchased the railroad and ran it for two summers, renaming it the Harvey West Railway & Diner, although "diner" was a bit of a stretch. In November 1981, Richard E. and Barbara A. Gempler, in partnership with Helen Waldemar, took over operations, after which the ownership trail grows cold, unfortunately. Around 1986, it was sold to Chris Burden, but no information is known regarding any intervening owners and it seems that the train was not operating during much of this time.

The Sierra Nevada & Golden West Railroad parked on the tracks, c. 1970s [Doris Emerick Correll]

A real estate advertisement for the railroad, 1975. [SC Sentinel]

By March 1992, the railroad was in a serious state of disrepair. Only the locomotive and a single passenger car were in operable condition, running again under the name Sierra Nevada Railroad. Burden was only charging 75¢ per ride, which certainly did not help his financial situation. Maintenance and rising insurance costs made it so Burden couldn't afford to operate the train in the coming summer. Interestingly, a German tourist offered Burden $40,000 for the railroad and its track, but Burden decided instead to shut it down, thereby ending 24 years of service. The track was pulled up and the train disappeared. Where it went is not currently known. Harvey West today still has a train—the large Southern Pacific locomotive #1298 that was installed for children to play around and on—but the footprint of the miniature railroad that once looped around much of the park is gone and its memory quickly fading.

Citations & Credits:

Donald A. Clark, Santa Cruz County Place Names: A Geographical Dictionary (Scotts Valley, CA: Kestrel Press, 2007).
Gary Parsons, personal correspondence.
Santa Cruz Sentinel, 1959 – 1992.

Deep in the redwoods in the mountains north of Scotts Valley, a small private miniature railroad once thrived under the guardianship of Jim "Homer" Holmes. Holmes was not new to the miniature railroad game—he had helped Billy Jones build his small railroad on Jones's ranch in Los Gatos and Holmes had also assisted Erich Thomsen. In addition, Jim was an employee of the Southern Pacific Railroad, working out of their signal department for decades. Thus, in 1959, Jim and his brother Dick decided to purchase land in Glenwood for the purpose of constructing their very own railroad. Now Glenwood once had a much larger railroad of its own, but the disastrous winter storms of February 1940 put an end to that line and for nineteen years, Glenwood sat quiet, largely forgotten by the rest of the county. Holmes had no ambition to put the former town back on the map, but he did aspire to turn his 15 acres into a miniature railroad paradise. He dubbed his creation the Glenwood, South Park & Pacific Railroad, and over the next thirty years, it would continue to grow without end.

A ride behind the "One Spot", with crowded gondola and flatcar, 1970s. (Clark Bauman)

#5 outside South Park enginehouse, 1970s. (Clark Bauman)

Construction of the 15-inch-gauge track was the first task completed, with a small fully-functional sawmill erected to cut the ties and other wood materials for the line. By 1962, the first locomotive was completed, which was essentially a custom-built steam donkey on wheels. Soon after its completion, a second locomotive, this one an oil burner that resembled a much larger narrow-gauge engine, was assembled on site. The track was slowly extended outward, covering much of the property over the years, with many friends of the Holmes' volunteering to help build and operate the trains. Two additional steam locomotives were added in the early 1980s, with one using a design based on Erich Thomsen's Redwood Valley Railway (Berkeley, CA) stock and another shop-built by Ken Kukuk. Indeed, it was Ken's Westside Locomotive Works that provided much of the machinery, parts, and technical assistance needed for Holmes and his friends to build their myriad rolling stock. A relatively large locomotive was completed in the early 2000s. To act as rolling stock for these five locomotives, a flat car, gondola, tank car, ballast car, and caboose were created, primarily to assist in further construction of the railroad. Finally, a rarely-used electric motor car, running off of overhead wires, and a heavy-duty maintenance motorcar fill out the railroad's stock.

The railroad itself was named directly after the narrow-gauged Denver, South Park & Pacific Railroad in Colorado which Jim admired. Glenwood, besides being the location of the railroad, was a historic railroad stop until 1940, while the name of the Clems stop on his line is after the real-life Clems station that sat at the south-western end of the Glenwood vale. Stovebolt was named after the Chevrolet engine that ran the mill. The etymology of Luteward Junction is not currently known to this historian.

#5 being worked on outside Glenwood, 1970s. (Clark Bauman)

The railroad is definitely a bit of a roller-coaster ride in its design, with a simple U-shaped track that has numerous spurs to access car barns, engine houses, and the sawmill. Most of the route sits on about a 4% grade but the climb from the sawmill exceeds 7% and a very short stretch near the top of the line is 9%! The turn at the bottom of the U is especially tight. Four formal stations, Glenwood, South Park, Stovebolt, and Clems, pockmark the route, with each sitting at a strategic site: South Park doubles as an enginehouse at the bottom of the grade, Glenwood is a switch to the sawmill and a car barn, Stovebolt doubles as the mill, and Clems is another enginehouse, accessible via a switch at Lutewards Junction. As of 2000, 3,000 feet of track was laid, while new track was recently still being laid further up on the hillside.

Craig operating the #13 on the Hillcrest & Wahtoke Railroad line in the 2000s. (Mike Massee)

The 1989 Loma Prieta Earthquake did a number to the railroad, damaging a locomotive and shifting much of the track downhill. While it has since been repaired, the most damaging aspect of the earthquake was the change of the water table from a relatively soft, easy-to-steam tap water to a much harder water that unfortunately damages the locomotives' inner workings. Because of this, the railroad has only operated on-site sporadically over the past twenty-six years. Much of its rolling stock enjoys a second life now at the Hillcrest & Wahtoke Railroad in Reedley, CA, where it can be experienced by more people than the small group of friends responsible for the GSP&P's existence. In fact, the #13 is one of the railroad's primary locomotives!

#5 on the Hillcrest & Wahtoke Railroad line in the 2000s. (Mike Massee)

Unfortunately, Dick Holmes died in 1977, and Jim Holmes just passed on 5 January 2015, leaving the future of the Glenwood, South Park & Pacific Railroad up in the air. In addition, due to the problems caused by the earthquake, the original railroad site has largely been abandoned, with vandals and thieves destroying much of the infrastructure and machinery. Although the track still remains in place, it seems the railroad will never really operate on-site again. But regardless of the physical location's fate, the locomotives and rolling stock continue on either in Reedley. The precise location of Holmes' railroad remains a closely-guarded secret, but its existence in the Santa Cruz Mountains is further evidence of the love Santa Cruz County has for railroading.

Citations & Credits:

"Glenwood, South Park & Pacific #13". Hillcrest.
Mike Massee and Clark Bauman, photographs and personal correspondence.
"Narrow Gauge at Glenwood". The Grand Scales Quarterly 10 (Jan 2000), 10-14.

See Also:

"The Big Juice – Electric Operations on the GSP&P". John Haskey, 2008.
"GSP&P #13, Full Train". HillcrestShops, 2015.
"Hillcrest & Wahtoke 15" gauge live steam railroad grande scales". Mike Massee, 2008. Engine #13 at 0:25.

Map of Santa Cruz Lumber Co. Railroad in Pescadero Creek

For decades, the timber at the headwaters of Pescadero Creek, located just barely within the limits of Santa Cruz County, were harvested and lumbered for various logging concerns. Oil Creek was harvested in the 1890s and Waterman Creek from 1903 to 1913. Then things went very quiet. 12,000 acres of old-growth redwood remained untouched along Pescadero Creek, timber acreage that had inspired the Felton & Pescadero Railroad's very name in 1883. No railroad would ever connect this territory to the outside world. But a railroad was built all the same.

Main mill pond with track at left, 1949. Photo by John Cummings.

In 1923, the Santa Cruz Lumber Company was founded by George Ley, who had purchased most of the timber north of Pescadero from the Henry Cowell family. Near the headwaters of the creek and on the county line of Santa Cruz and San Mateo Counties, Ley built the Waterman Gap Mill, which was accompanied by a large mill pond and inclined tramway to connect the facility to the main County Road just to the east (modern-day State Route 9). The mill had a capacity of 60,000 board feet per day and operated via steam power. It employed up to 85 men in the 1920s, although by the 1970s the number had dropped to 50.

The engine shed and water tower for the locomotive. Mill in ravine at left, January 7, 1950. Photo by Richard C. Brown.

For the first decade, Ley harvested the lumber around the mill, creating areas for lumber storage, an expanded tram system, and better roads to ship the wood to Santa Cruz. Chutes were installed above the mill to slide and drag lumber to the mill pond from the hills. Ley used trucks operating on service roads to haul the lumber to Boulder Creek for railroad shipment (until 1933) and then to Felton. Since the Dougherty Extension Railroad was pulled in 1917, there was no railroad access north of Boulder Creek at the time Ley ran his mill. By the 1930s, all of the area within reach of the mill had been harvested and a decision had to be made on how to get the timber from further afield to the mill at the top of the grade.

The lumber train dumping into the mill pond, 1943. (Company photo)

On March 31, 1930, Ley purchased a 42 ton standard-gauge Shay locomotive from the San Joaquin & Eastern Railroad, as well as a few flatcars for use on a private isolated railroad that he envisioned running between the mill and alongside the creek to the west. It was designated SCLCo. No. 2, taking its number from its former owner. The truck was trucked to the top of State Route 9 and then hauled to the mill overhead via cable lines. At the same time, a small track was built beside the mill where the locomotive would be reassembled for operations on the line. The track was constructed with truly ancient metals—some dated to 1881. The main track ran opposite the mill and slightly above it so that it could dump logs directly into the mill pond. Beside and above the mill, a one-stall engine house was erected for storage and repairs of the locomotive. Only a single siding was installed, serving as a runaround for the engine house. The fuel tank and water tower were installed just opposite the house on the siding.

The lumber train running down the track to the mill, 1947. Photo by Jack Gibson.

In the early 1940s, the flatcars were destroyed in a wreck along a steep logging spur lower in the valley and six new flatcars were purchased from the Yosemite Valley Lumber Company. This new fleet of flatcars were sturdier and stronger so could withstand more abuse. A Southern Pacific tanker car was also purchased around this time for unknown uses. As the track was ever extended downhill alongside the creek, a few short spurs were added and removed and grades of up to 6% were attained to reach some of the more troubled spots. Bridges were built primarily out of stacked logs and, while massive in size, were still ofttimes precarious. By 1950, the railroad extended nearly 8 miles to just outside the YMCA camp at San Mateo county Memorial Park. A makeshift passenger car was created at some point in the 1940s to ferry lumbermen from the mill to the end of the line. A water tower was also installed mid-way down the route.

The train dumping lumber into the mill pond. Engine lettering added by photographer. Photo by Fred Stoes.

The railroad never made any connections to the outside world, unfortunately, and was doomed before it even began. Large freight trucks were already becoming popular in the mid-1920s and by 1935, Catepillar tractors were brought in to assist in the logging operations. In 1945, the road to State Route 9 was properly graded so that trucks could regularly access the mill for exporting lumber. Then, in the summer of 1950, the lumber company's timber harvesters had finally reached the top of the summit ridge. While the company still owned extensive lands on the opposite side of the summit, there was no way of getting the train over there cheaply. Santa Cruz Lumber Company decided to tear up the rails and roadbed and convert it to a truck road. The locomotive and cars were stored until 1954 when they were scrapped. The mill itself was scrapped in 1955 and rebuilt into a modern facility. Santa Cruz Lumber continued to operate along Pescadero Creek until 1972, reorganising the remaining 7,079 unharvested acres of redwood forest as Pescadero Creek Tree Farm. The company closed in 1989, selling its assets to San Lorenzo Valley Lumber Company, while its properties were transferred to Redtree Properties Ltd., which is still owned by the Ley family today.

One of the log bridges created along the right-of-way. (Company photo)

Geo-Coordinates & Access Rights:
Mill Location: 37.212˚N, 121.171˚W

Access to the mill site is trespassing, unfortunately, since there is still quite a lot of material left on the site. By the time the mill closed, a full planning mill appears to have been in operation there. The route of the track mostly followed along the south bank of Pescadero Creek from the mill site to Jones Gulch. While the precise route of the track is not certain, many believe and assume that Old Haul Road, which begins at the junction of State Route 9 and State Route 236 is more or less the railroad grade. This road is legal to use, although it is very remote and 4-wheel drive is recommended. The grade passes into Portola Redwoods State Park, passing beside Pescadero Creek Park, ending just east of the junction of Pescadero Creek Road and Wurr Road near YMCA Camp Loma Mar.

Citations & Credits:

Ennis, Dwight. "The Real Santa Cruz Lumber Co". The Santa Cruz Lumber Company Garden Railroad. Milpitas, CA: 2002.

Out of the ashes of the great Neptune Casino fire of 1906 arose a new phenomenon at the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk. Since the 1860s, the Santa Cruz main beach had been a popular tourist resort, sporting public bath houses, spas and restaurants, gift shops and beachfront campsites. Then in 1903, Fred Swanton formed the Santa Cruz Beach & Tent City Corporation to convert what was a random assortment of private attractions into one unifying vision for the beach. He purchased the large Miller-Leibbrandt Plunge and its accompanying Electric Pier and he moved the old Neptune Bath across the street to become the Tent City restaurant and corporate office for the company. In its place, he erected a massive Moorish-style casino inclusive of (non-gambling) games, gift shops, restaurants, dancing pavilion, and so much more. Outside, a beautiful band stand was erected while beyond the newly-upgraded plunge a large roller rink was built. No other entertainment attractions were built at this time and nothing else would be forthcoming. For two marvellous summers—1904 and 1905—this grand casino thrived attracting visitors from all over the country, and then tragically everything came to a fiery end one June night in 1906.

Color postcard of the Bay Shore Limited, c. 1910, after the demolition of the curio shop. (Santa Cruz Public Libraries)

The new Casino and the Plunge, while opened before the summer of 1907, built in a Spanish Revival style and was upgraded with state-of-the-art fire suppression systems and far superior architecture. These buildings were meant to last and they still stands today at the western end of the Boardwalk, testaments of the resolve to avoid another catastrophe like that of 1906. But with the new Boardwalk completed, Swanton began searching for attractions to improve his upstart amusement park.

The west end of the Bay Shore Limited loop, with the Pleasure Pier in the background. (Harold von Gorder Collection).

The Bay Shore Limited beside the Plunge, 1907. At right is the skating rink
and at left is the curio shop, both in the style of the 1904 Neptune Casino
suggesting they survived the fire of 1906. [SC Sentinel]

The very first one of those attractions was a 1904 Cagney Brothers' Miniature Railroad Company 22-inch gauge train that ran from the base of the Pleasure Pier to the San Lorenzo River and back under the name Bay Shore Limited. The locomotive was a regulation coal-powered steam engine registered with the Interstate Commerce Commission and operated by an engineer and fireman. It opened in the summer of 1907 right alongside the new Casino and Plunge, and operated on the beach side of the quickly-extending wooden walkway that lined the shore, although after the L.A. Thompson Scenic Railway was built in 1908, part of the track ran directly atop a beach dune. The railroad ran with up to six passenger cars, each capable of seating 16 adults comfortably. Despite persistent rumours, there is little evidence that the locomotive operated on the Loma Prieta tracks in the off-season hauling logs due to the difference in gauges. What is certainly true, though, is that Swanton used this train to exchange courtesy passes with other railroad companies, earning him free railroad service across the United States. The track ran down a long wooden boardwalk to the river where a sharp loop inside an enclosed tunnel turned the train around for its return trip to the Pleasure Pier. Another turntable at the base of the pier ended at a loading station for another trip. The railroad remained in use until the end of 1915, at which point the Santa Cruz Seaside Company, which took over from Swanton in December, decided to discontinue it. Santa Cruz businesses were not responding well to World War I and Swanton had overextended himself, going bust. Competition with other attractions also damaged the little railroad's income.

The eastern end of the Bay Shore Limited, showing the long platform out to the turnaround. (Harold von Gorder)

After its near-destruction in a warehouse fire, the railroad was sold for scrap to a San Francisco firm where Joseph Cornelius Hayes found it. He began restoring it in 1924 with plans to operate it at San Francisco's Ocean Beach or Pacific City in San Mateo, but bad luck haunted the train. Herbert Fleishhacker finally purchased the restored train from Hayes in 1925 and installed it at his zoo in west San Francisco, where it operated until 1978. It was put into storage that year where it languished, rusting as it sat in an enclosure with two Asian elephants, a grey seal, and a pigmy hippo. In 1998, it was restored by staff of the zoo, now known as the San Francisco Zoo, naming it the "Little Puffer", apparently a nicknamed it had even in 1907. It can still be ridden today, one of only three 22-inch gauge railroads still in existence.

The Sun Tan Jr. parked beside its runaround siding on the western end of the
Boardwalk, c. 1930. Loff Carousel building visible at left. [SC Sentinel]

A decade later, in 1928, the Sun Tan Jr. was installed along much of the same route of the original miniature railroad. This train was named after the much larger Sun Tan Special that began hauling passengers to the beach from San José the year earlier. Stanley E. Kohl, a Capitolan miniature railroad builder, opened the train as a beach front concession and operated it for five years until 1933, when the Great Depression likely drove him out of business. This train was a 1/3 scale Northwestern Pacific locomotive, based on his memories as a mail clerk in San Francisco. Unlike the first railroad at the Boardwalk, this one operated off of a simple diesel-powered Dodge motor hidden beneath a fake boiler, with the exhaust exiting out of the steam pipe at top. The capacity of this little train was up to 3,500 people per day, an impressive feat. It ran from the base of the Pleasure Pier to roughly the location of Funland Arcade today atop a long raised trestle that turned back onto the 'Walk on its ends. The Seaside Company took over the concession in 1933 and operated it until 1935, after which the train disappeared from history.

Photograph of the Sun Tan Jr. running alongside the Boardwalk with the Laff-Land dark ride at left, c. 1930.

The City of Santa Cruz Streamliner on its elevated track beside the main
Boardwalk, c. 1940 [SC Sentinel]

In 1938, a new track was built along the outside edge of the Boardwalk atop 5,000 redwood ties and 1,000 pilings. The new railroad was the City of Santa Cruz Streamliner, an electric train based on Zephyr that had locomotives at both ends. The locomotives and four passenger cars were locally built by the Standard Welding Company of Santa Cruz under the leadership of J. Ross Whiting, the later founder of Whitings Games. The train was highlighted in red and silver/chrome with green leather seats throughout, replicated in the Zephyr in every way possible. At the time, it was the only miniature railroad that ran entirely atop an elevated trestle. It's capacity was estimated to be 200,000 per summer, which comes out to roughly 2,000 people per day. Unfortunately, very little information is known about this short-lived attraction. Unfortunately, World War II ostensibly shut down many of the attractions at the park including this railroad. The railroad, which operated directly over the beach, was deemed too visible when blackout curtains were installed along the walk. It was the last attraction to run alongside the majority of the Boardwalk until the construction of the Skygliders in the mid-1960s. Nothing is known about this train's fate.

The Cave Train to the Lost World, April 2014. (Dexter Francis)

The Cave Train at its depot at the eastern end of the Boardwalk, 1964.
[SC Sentinel]

At around that same time, in June 1961 to be specific, a new miniature railroad was installed in a much tighter and enclosed venue than its three predecessors. Operating off two 2-ton batteries which are recharged nightly, the Cave Train to the Lost World is not your usual miniature railroad. Its appearance is a bit exaggerated and it is operated with quite simple controls. Two near-identical fiberglass locomotives drive two 8-car trains in a circular, albeit curvy, 2,200-foot-long track that runs under the far eastern end of the Boardwalk. The interior nature of this train means that, unlike its predecessors, it can actually feature artificial wonders during the ride, thus the theme of the Cave Train is something akin to TheFlintstones, less the official branding. Many of the automated electronics along the ride are triggered by switches hidden in the tracks so staff does not have to operate visuals remotely. In 2000, the ride was upgraded and now is in ultraviolet and follows the story of cave people visiting the Santa Cruz Beach during the Palaeolithic Era, although the trains themselves retain their original faux rustic charm. The original welcome depot was demolished as a part of the rebuild and now the queuing area is outside and uncovered. Considering the recent improvements to the ride, it is unlikely this will be replaced any time soon.

Citations & Credits:

Beal, Chandra Moira and Richard A. Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk: The Early Years—Never a Dull Moment (Pacific Group, 2003).
"Little Puffer Steam Train". San Francisco Zoo.
Rice, Walter and Emiliano Echeverria. Images of Rail: Rails of California's Central Coast (Arcadia, 2008).
Santa Cruz Sentinel, 05/05/1938, 2:1-3.
Santa Cruz Sentinel, 09/20/1964, 21.

Original souvenir map of Santa's Village in Scotts Valley.
(ImageArchaology.com)

When one thinks of railroads, even miniature ones, in Santa Cruz County, the long-departed Santa's Village amusement park in Scotts Valley does not usually come to mind. And for many good reasons, it should not, yet for the entire length of its operation, a small diesel-powered railroad ran around a loop entertaining children and adults of all ages.

Santa's Village—sometimes called Skyforest—was the brainchild of H. Glenn Holland, a property developer from Southern California who had already built a similarly-named park at Lake Arrowhead in May 1955, six weeks before Disneyland opened in Anaheim. In 1957, his Santa's Village franchise became the first to become a chain of amusement parks, with a park opening in Scotts Valley that year, and another park opening in East Dundee near Chicago in 1959. Plans to built two more parks in Virginia and New Jersey were never realised. The Scotts Valley venue was opened on May 30, 1957, on 25 acres of the Lawridge dairy farm which Holland had leased the previous year. Richard Bellack, the resident manager, operated the park as a franchise for the first two summers before selling his role to Bruce Prather.

Santa's Express Train* rounding a corner during Halloween time. (ImageArchaology.com)

Among the opening day attractions was the Santa's Express Train which operated under the name "Magic Train Ride". This 14-inch gauge miniature railroad mimicked the appearance of a generic steam engine from the 19th century, although in actuality a diesel motor drove the train. It was built by the Hurlbut Amusement Company in Buena Park, California. Bud Hurlbut's operation was famous regionally for building the trains at Knott's Berry Farm, where he operated a concession for decades. It was a relatively simple design with around five painted wooden passenger cars that could see four adults (uncomfortably) or eight mid-sized children in front/back facing seats. The single operator sat perpendicular to the locomotive in the tender car. The train ran around a relatively short circular track which was decorated with an assortment of vegetation. What Christmas theme existed along the route has not been documented or commented upon.

Santa's Express Train with Santa Claus at the wheel! (ImageArchaology.com)

Santa's Express Train ticket booth, with locomotive in the distance. (ImageArchaology.com)

Santa's Village was never a very successful venture, especially once the East Dundee park opened, which was more expensive to run and unable to operate in cold weather conditions. The board of trustees revolted in 1965, forcing Holland to sell all his parks. The Scotts Valley park passed to Noorudin Billawalla in 1966, who operated it under the name Santa's Village Corporation. Billawalla eventually declared bankruptcy in 1977, hoping to recover his expenses and reopen the park as a second Knott's Berry Farm in the north, but the City of Scotts Valley rejected this idea. Suddenly desperate, Billawalla rebranded the park The Village, promoting it as an arts and crafts event space, but it attracted little interest. Scotts Valley demanded the park be brought up to code and also rezoned some of the space as residential, removing many acres from the site. Damage from a winter storm in 1978-9 crippled the park further. In 1979, operations in Scotts Valley came to an end and the entire park, including Santa's Express Train, were dismantled and sold. The property sat abandoned for over a decade until Borland International purchased the site. Besides a small collection of abandoned structures hidden in the woods, nothing really remains of the park except the State Route 17 highway exit "Santa's Village Road". Sadly, even that road is falling apart. The ultimate fate of Santa's Express Train is unknown.

* All images of the train may be of the sister train that operated at the Lake Arrowhead park, which was also of the same design. Both parks were popularly known as Skyforest, causing endless confusion regarding attribution of photos.

Geo-Coordinates & Access Rights:
37.0655˚N, 121.9953˚W

The Santa's Village property is off limits to all unauthorised visitors and trespassing is highly discouraged. Nothing of the rides or the train survive, only the original club house which sits in a very dilapidated and dangerous state remain on site. Relics of the park can be seen at various places throughout the Scotts Valley area, especially iconic multicolored toadstools that once littered the park.

Citations & Credits:

Gomez, Phil. "Santa's Village in Scotts Valley featured in documentary". KSBW Action News 8. 2013. [Video]
Grennier, Bobbie. "Santa's Village Scotts Valley". 2011.
Kelley, Edward J. Personal correspondence.
Nanney, Duncan. Personal correspondence.

Original cider plant on 3rd Street, c 1885. (Monterey Bay Area News)

The tale of Swiss immigrant Stephen G. Martinelli and his bottled Champagne cider company is a long story with a rich history in the Pajaro Valley. Founded in 1868 as S. Martinelli & Company, it grew quickly in Watsonville, especially once its apple cider won a gold medal at the California State Fair in 1890. During Prohibition, the company was forced to create a new recipe that used unfermented apple juice, thus producing today's sparkling cider. Although alcoholic cider was reintroduced in 1934, it was discontinued in 1979 due to falling demand.

In its earliest years, Martinelli's did not heavily use the railroad for export. The family's "cider works", built in 1885, was located on 3rd Street (now East Beach Street) near Carr Street where they still operate a smaller factory today alongside their juice bar. But this location did not have direct access to the railroad tracks. Indeed, the coming of the Santa Cruz Railroad in 1873 probably had very little impact on the startup firm since its exports were still low. Following World War II, the company expanded slowly but steadily until by the 1990s, the original factory could not support demand. Plans to move out of the county were discussed until a property along Kearney Street opened up. And then, the Green Giant plant along the Southern Pacific Railroad's Santa Cruz Branch became available as the company decided to relocate to Mexico. Martinelli's set up shop along the spur that had for so long catered to Green Giant and the Apple Growers' Cold Storage Company, which Martinelli's had used for many years to store its apples.

1969 aerial image of the West Beach Street spur (top-center) while only Green Giant and the Apple Growers'
occupied the site. Further growth is clearly planned considering the track's length. (UCSC Digital Collections)

The Apple Growers' Cold Storage Company had sat along the Southern Pacific tracks since it first opened on land owned by Mitchell Resetar in February 1929. It became in 1932 the Apple Growers' Ice & Cold Storage Company. Like the Union Ice Company and many other similar facilities, this company's primary purpose was to freeze and refrigerate the products of local agricultural and packaging businesses such as Martinelli's. The company still exists today along its original spur, although a catastrophic fire in 2011 destroyed much of the facility including $3 million worth of finished Martinelli products. The property has since been completely demolished and is now a small agricultural plot across West Beach Street from Martinelli's.

Google Street View image of the Apple Growers's Ice & Cold Storage grounds after the fire (burn damage at left), 2011.

Green Giant had maintained a small facility in Watsonville for many years on the corner of West Beach and Walker Streets. In late 1969, during a county-wide campaign to attract new businesses to the county (a project that also attracted Lipton to Santa Cruz's West Side), it relocated to West Beach Street directly across from the Apple Growers' facility. For the next 22 years, it remained on the site using the factory for packaging and cold storage until financial troubles forced the company to relocate to Mexico, where labor costs were lower. Pillsbury purchased the company in 1979, so it was they who were responsible for this move. The suddenly vacant property went on the market in 1993 and Martinelli's which had planned to locate its new plant nearer Watsonville station, jumped at the opportunity for this larger facility located immediately across from its apple suppliers.

Martinell's also exists, although it is unclear if Martinelli's ever used its railroad spurs. Most likely, they were used to import apples and were never used for export, although Green Giant undoubtedly used them for such. The remnant of a spur that ran alongside the factory (and is now removed) is likely linked to when Green Giant owned the plant. The remaining spurs through the area end at adjacent businesses.

Official Railroad Information:
As a private spur within the Watsonville yard limits, Martinelli's would have only ever appeared in yard maps which this author unfortunately does not possess for the Watsonville area.

Geo-Coordinates & Access Rights:
36.9037˚N, 121.7679˚W

Google Map showing the location of the West Beach Street plant across from the old Apple Growers Cold Storage Co.
(the vacant lot).

The Martinelli plant is still a fully-operational facility and as such public access is not allowed. Fortunately, the tracks may be viewed from multiple locations. The easiest is along West Beach Street where the tracks cross over the road and are visible on either side. The smaller Industrial Road that heads south from West Beach Street parallels the tracks for a short while before the tracks turn decisively inward to the loading docks of the factory (as well as to three other private companies). These tracks are closed to the public, unfortunately, but are quite viewable from Google Maps. Evidence of additional spurs in the area are also quite clear from a quick Google Maps survey. The switch that branches the Martinelli's Spur off the main line is also accessible since it occurs on Ohlone Parkway

Citations & Credits:

Chown, Jon. "S. Martinelli & Co. marks 145th year". Monterey Bay News & Views. 02/07/2013.
"History". Martinelli's Gold Medal. 2008.
Santa Cruz Sentinel, various articles from 1885 to 1993.

Adolph Claus J. Spreckels was not an unknown entity when he decided in 1888 to erect a massive sugar beet refinery just outside downtown Watsonville. The sugar beet king had begun his career in 1872 in Aptos as the owner of a large resort hotel. He, with Frederick A. Hihn, was the primary financier of the Santa Cruz Railroad, which was completed in 1876. Beginning with Rancho Aptos, Spreckels began growing sugar beets in Santa Cruz and Monterey Counties, inducing dozens of local farmers to become his clients in the venture. But in 1888, he founded the Western Beet Sugar Company within the Watsonville city limits, and it quickly became the largest sugar beet refinery in the United States.

An overview look at the entire Spreckels refinery yards, c 1895, with the cleaning barns at right, the factory in the center, and endless piles of unprocessed sugar beets. The Southern Pacific mainline is visible in the foreground beside stacks of lumber. The Pajaro Valley Consolidated Railroad turntable and engine house is just in front of the refinery at center-right.
(PacificNG Collection)

The Western Beet Sugar Company's refinery was built just northwest of the Southern Pacific Railroad station in Watsonville, along Ford Street and near Walker Street and fenced in from the north by Watsonville Slough. Over the course of the next few years, the structures at the factory expanded massively. Four massive beet bins were installed to clean and process the beats. Between the two southernmost bins, a special pair of railroad sidings were installed that ran their entire 900 foot length before passing directly through the middle of the factory itself. These two tracks constituted the Southern Pacific Railroad's connection to the refinery and are the two tracks that still survive at the site today. They were standard-gauged and used primarily for export shipping. To the northwest of the factory, the tracks met, although did not merge, with the tracks of the Pajaro Valley Railroad.

Western Beet Sugar refinery, c. 1900, with the turntable and engine house at left. (Bancroft Library)

The narrow-gauged Pajaro Valley Railroad was constructed in 1890 by Spreckels to help his farmers in the Pajaro and Salinas Valleys get their sugar beets to his refinery in Watsonville. It initially reached Moss Landing and Moro Cojo Slough but was soon extended all the way to the southern outskirts of Salinas where Spreckels was building a brand new, much larger refinery. With this new extension, the name of the company was changed to the Pajaro Valley Consolidated Railroad which took effect in 1892. With the new railroad and refinery, Watsonville Terminal—the official railroad name for the Watsonville factory—became the northern hub of the line. To support this, many new facilities were built on the southern side of the Watsonville refinery including a turntable, a three-stall engine house, a water tower, and multiple sidings. The Pajaro Valley Railroad tracks crossed the Southern Pacific tracks just west of Watsonville Station's freight yard, and a tiny station booth was added here to allow for transfers between the two lines.

1892 Sanborn map showing the entirety of the Western Beet Sugar Company refinery. (UCSC Digital Collections)

1892 Sanborn map of the Watsonville Creamery & Cattle
Company's facility and railroad stop (UCSC Digital Collections)

Everything at the Western Beet Sugar refinery revolved around the massive four-story factory structure that towered over the grounds. The Pajaro Valley Railroad's main track wrapped around the structure to the west, meeting and paralleling the Southern Pacific tracks that emerged from the factory. They continued to the fringe of Watsonville Slough along a narrow fill that terminated at the Watsonville Creamery & Cattle Company. A small platform was built at the end to allow the loading of freight and/or cattle. The company became Miller & Lux's Cattle Feeding Sheds by 1902, at which point the station here appears to have gone into disuse. This fill still exists and now acts as a private access road for the farm still at the site. Just before the slough, a side track broke off and wrapped around the north side of the refinery to enter a long enclosed cleaning and storage warehouse. Thus, rather uniquely for the region, the Western Beet Sugar refinery was catered to by two entirely independent railroad companies which used two different gauge tracks to accomplish similar goals. For a brief time, the factory was a hub of activity and commerce in the Watsonville area, symbolized by the cooperation of the two railroad companies.

The refinery, in dark contrast and possibly showing more signs of color in its paint scheme, c. 1897.

By the mid-1890s, railroad services had expanded at the refinery and the factory itself nearly doubled in size. A new pair of Southern Pacific tracks ran parallel to its old one, running across the front of the refinery, and a spur off the old line catered to a new sugar loading warehouse. Meanwhile, the Pajaro Valley Consolidated Railroad track added two additional spurs, one that ran to a storage shed to the northeast of the factory and another that terminated at a the sugar loading warehouse beside the Southern Pacific Track. Beside the old run-around track, another warehouse was erected for freight loading purposes. To the south of Beach Street, a large freight warehouse was also erected alongside the Pajaro Valley tracks to cater to additional Spreckels refinery concerns.

The refinery on a busy day, c. 1895. (California State Railroad Museum)

In 1898, Spreckels formally shifted all refining operations to his new factory outside of Salinas. The Watsonville refinery was renamed Spreckels Sugar Company milll #2 and became a back-up and overflow refinery, listed in the 1902 Sanborn map as "used as a reserve mill only". In other words, the mill was closed for business. The loss of the factory was a blow to local businesses that had hoped Spreckels would help build up the city of Watsonville. Instead, he diverted the crops of the few sugar beet planters away from the city and to Monterey County. Sanborn maps suggest that the dismantling of the factory began after the 1906 San Francisco Earthquake, when Spreckels probably decided it wasn't worth repairing.

The refinery in its final years, c. 1897. (National Museum of American History)

The 1908 Sanborn map notes it is "not in operation" rather than in "reserve". Large portions of the facility were already gone by that year and even some of the spurs were truncated or removed. The 1911 map shows Kearney Street Extension for the first time with the Hihn-Hammond Lumber Company occupying the former sugar beet cleaning yard. Fruit packing houses already were popping up along the new road on grounds that were formerly Spreckels yards. By this point, only the original two Southern Pacific spurs remained with the Pajaro Valley Consolidated Railroad still retaining its former trackage, although probably not using any of it. The factory still remained but was "vacant". The final Sanborn map available from UCSC Digital Collections shows a very different in 1920. The Hihn-Hammond Lumber yard has stretched across most of the old grounds while numerous agricultural—mostly fruit—packing companies, driers, refrigerators, and canneries sit on either side of Kearney Street Ext. The old PVCRR turntable remains, but the engine house is gone. Two spurs continue past the turntable on entirely new paths but terminate soon afterwards. The Southern Pacific spurs in the area now cater to the Crown Fruit Extract Company, which sits on the site of an old Spreckels molasses refinery, and the Shell Oil Company, located at the end of Ford Street. The last trace of Spreckels' presence in the area, the Pajaro Valley Consolidated Railroad, shut down permanently in 1929 and its properties and stock were sold to the Southern Pacific, which immediately scrapped the line.

Official Railroad Information:
As a freight stop along a private spur, the Southern Pacific Railroad did not note the refinery on any of its official documentation. However, the Pajaro Valley Consolidated Railroad, which had its northern terminus at the refinery, simply called the factory "Watsonville Terminal" from 1899 to 1928. It was located 27.2 miles from the Spreckels factory near Salinas via a long circuitous route following the coast until the track reached the Salinas River, at which point it followed the river inland. The terminus included a turntable, three-stall engine house, a water tower, and a total 7-car capacity for loading product cargoes for shipment out on the main Southern Pacific line.

Geo-Coordinates & Access Rights:
36.906˚N, 121.767˚W

The site of Spreckels Beet Sugar Refinery remains an active industrial area and the original spur built in 1888 for Spreckels still cuts through the heart of this block. Numerous businesses now sit on either side of the spur, including Del Mar Seafoods, Crop Production Services, Tomich Brothers Seafoods, Better Brand Foods, Auto Care Towing, and Terminal Freezers. Of the tracks that once ran through the block, only two remain and neither are in use. A single track runs to the north of Watsonville Station paralleling Walker Street before splitting just before the crossing over Kearney Street Extension. The track now only splits where before it forked multiple times to service the many businesses in the area. The northern fork caters to Terminal Freezers, ending at the end of their building, while the southern fork disappears under gravel behind Auto Care Towing. From Google Maps, it is clear that the track once continued onward to the end of the block, with one spur once crossing the slough along a still-existing fill. A remnant track still parallels Walker Street on the west side for quite a distance longer, while hints of other now removed spurs can be seen throughout the district. Access to this area is restricted to employees of the various companies, although much of the trackage can be viewed from public streets.

Citations & Credits:

"Pajaro Valley Consolidated Railroad". Monterey County Historical Society, 2010.
Sanborn Map Collection, University of California, Santa Cruz, Digital Map Collections, 1886 - 1920.
"The Western Beet Sugar Company". Santa Cruz County History – Making a Living. Santa Cruz Public Libraries.
"Western Beet Sugar Company factory, Watsonville, California". America on the Move. National Museum of American History.

Asilomar

Lake Majella

Miller's Gun Club

Lyda

Newria

Betabel

Sargent

Corporal

Miller & Nema

Carnadero

Rapetti

Swanton Pacific Railroad

Parr's Spur & Bermingham

Sierra Nevada & Golden West Railroad

Glenwood, South Park & Pacific Railroad

Santa Cruz Lumber Company

Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk Miniature Railroads

Santa's Express Train

West Beach Street Spur, Part I: Apple Growers, Green Giant & Martinelli's

Spreckels Beet Sugar Refinery