California Central Coast Railways By Rick Hamman Soft Cover

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California Central Coast Railways By Rick Hamman

Soft Cover

320 pages

Indexed

Contents

1..The Expanding Dream: Rails to Santa Cruz 3
2..The Aptos Creek and The Loma Prieta Railroads39
3..The San Lorenzo River Basin Railroads83
4..The North Coast169
5..The Transition: The Contracting Reality201
6..Lingering Ghosts of Another Time243
7.The Santa Cruz Branch recently......................................................................295

Appendix A: Locomotive Rosters for

Santa Cruz County Railroads 304

Bibliography 312

Index 316

Some fifty miles south of the Golden Gate entrance to the San Francisco Bay lies a small strip of unique California Central Coast land-Santa Cruz County. It is unique because it is one of the smallest counties in the state, yet it has some of the most diverse geographic conditions found in California. It offers rich farm land, sanddeposits, dense forests with redwoods, ponderosa, and fir pine trees, and ferhills ideally suited to growing fruits.

With the westward expansion and development of nearby San Francisco, these mineral, agri, and lumbering treasures came into demand-and local entrepreneurs saw the need for many railroad connections with the outside world to generate large markets for these resources.

This book is, then, the story of the railroads that came to Santa Cruz County and of the industries that thrived with the advent of the railroad. Not a spike and tie account of each of the now-abandoned railway lines that once prospered, this work is an anthology of all the lines, presented within the context of the people and times that knew them. CALIFORNIA CENTRAL COAST RAILWAYS includes the history of the Santa Cruz Railroad Company, the Loma Prieta Railroad, the Ocean Shore Railroad, the Dougherty Railroad, and many more.

One might call Rick Hamman a "jack-of-all-trades," a traveler, a drifter, and perhaps even , a folk philosopher. He works as an electronic component specialist at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center, has a formal education and an official title. Yet, he says, so far his greatest meaning in life has come from the odd jobs he's held-ranch hand, junior counselor on a kids' ranch, carnival roustabout, busboy, strawberry picker, sailor-and from the experience of meeting people from diverse walks of life. Everyone has a story in his head to tell about the experiences in the life they've lived and he likes to chronicle these for future posterity before they slip away from life itself. In his free time, Rick works on his hobbies-railroad and transportation history, photography, and writing-and resides in Ben Lomond, California. CALIFORNIA CENTRAL COAST RAILWAYS is his first book.

Introduction

Some fifty miles south of the Golden Gate entrance to San Francisco Bay and forty miles north of the City of Monterey lies a small strip of unique California Central Coast land, 15-miles in width and 34-miles in length, known as Santa Cruz County. It is unique because it is one of the smallest counties in the state and because it has some of the most diverse geographic conditions found in California. This diversity divides itself into four very different geographical areas: the North Coast, the San Lorenzo River Basin, the Central County, and the Pajaro (Pa'ha'ro) Valley.

The North Coast is an area stretching from the southern city of Santa Cruz to a northern point on Ano Nuevo Bay, which is bounded on the west by the Pacific Ocean and on the east, two to three miles inland, by the 2,000 to 2,500 foot Ben Lomond Mountain Range. Because of the somewhat cool and moist weather conditions brought on by the proximity of the ocean and because most of this land is bottom land from the mountain, the area has always been good for farming such things as artichokes, Brussels sprouts, lettuce, spinach and other similar crops. Because of previous ocean history the area is rich in sandstone-limestone type deposits with some of the finest Portland Cement coming out of the Davenport locality and sand from the Wilder Creek.

To the east of the North Coast is the very different San Lorenzo River Basin. Here one finds a densely forested watershed area where monsterous Redwood Trees, large Ponderosa and Fir Pine Trees, and stately Tanbark Oak and twisted Madrone trees abound in numbers too many to count. The area, known as the San Lorenzo Valley, is bounded on the west by the Ben Lomond Mountain Range and, twelve miles further in, by the 3,000 foot Santa Cruz Mountain range, which extends all along the eastern boundary of the County. It is here that because of these two ranges and

the effect they have on storms coming in off the sea that 60-80 inches of rain falls in the averge year. All of this water, once used, is funneled out of the Valley through a narrow seven mile granite gorge known as the San Lorenzo Canyon and is returned to the sea at the City of Santa Cruz. Also here, because of previous ocean history, are large sandstone-limestone type deposits from which, among other things, comes some of the finest glass sand on the west coast.

The Central County is an area of rolling mountains which extend from the Santa Cruz Range to the Monterey Bay. It is the land of the Soquel, much like the San Lorenzo, but more open. Here not only are dense forests found, but also large tracts of fertile hills well suited to the growing of apples, cherries, plums, apricots and grapes. It is also the land of the Aptos and the Valencia where the density of forested mountain areas extend deep into hidden canyons some of which are 1,200 feet in depth and only three-eighths of a mile across. Closer to the ocean and Monterey Bay the Central County is similar to the North Coast with rich farmlands, many of which until recently produced sugar beets.

The southern portion of the County is perhaps in its own way the most interesting of all. Just eight miles from the dense forests is a lush, flat, fertile, garden known as the Pajaro Valley through which the river of the same name brings its precious water from the lower Santa Clara and San Juan Valleys to the Monterey Bay. From this land comes a major portion of the Country's strawberries and the world famous Watsonville Apples. It, like most of the coastal land, has a moderate climate and is well suited to the fruit tree and the plow.

It was in 1791 when the Franciscan Monks first tried to bring their brand of Spanish civility to this

area. On a hill overlooking Monterey Bay and the mouth of the San Lorenzo river they founded theMission of Santa Cruz (Holy Cross). In 1846 the United States flag went up over the area and it soon became part of the County of Santa Cruz and the State of California. With the beginning of westward expansion and the burgeoning of the nearby City of San Francisco and surrounding Bay Area the hidden mineral, agricultural and board-foot lumber wealth of Santa Cruz County soon came into demand. In short order, settlers, squatters and homesteaders moved in and papermills, powdermills, small lumbering operations and farms were started. By 1865 business and commerce had become established and local entrepreneurs began to see a need for a railroad connection with the outside world to help generate larger profits from product and produce.

By 1870 the dream of a rail connection had become a reality with the arrival of the Southern Pacific at Pajaro near Watsonville. Now that a railroad was established the development - some would later call it desecration - of the County could begin. For the next fifty years hundreds of millions of board-feet of lumber would leave the canyons of the North Coast, the San Lorenzo River Basin, the Aptos and Valencia Creeks, and the upper Soquel to help build the west. Limestone operations and Cement plants would be established, powdermills would be expanded, and the farming areas of the County would develop to feed the increasing western population; new crops like the sugar beet would be started to compete with the Cuban cane sugar which was then supplying most of the country's needs, and the County because of the endless miles of beautiful seashores and green forests would become a major tourist attraction for the nearby San Francisco Bay Area population.

Of course, to do all this work a network of railroads would be developed throughout the County, extending into every little gulch and canyon, small mountain town, and rich agricultural valley. The first railroads would be what the local citizenry called the Narrow Gauge (three feet from rail to rail). As the trains became larger and the demand for more capacity increased, the Standard Gauge of today (four feet eight and one half inches between the rails) or what the locals called the "Broad Gauge" came into being. Before it would all be over almost every corner of the

County would see some type of a railroad operation.

With the coming of the 1930's and 1940's, the automobile, the bus, and the truck would play a more dominant role in the movement of goods and people. The logging of the first growth trees in the Santa Cruz Mountains would come to an end and the many small

railroads and unnecessary branch lines would be abandoned. While freight railroading would continue

within the County, passenger service would be a thing of the past. By the end of the 1970's, the once large railroad network would be reduced to a single freight train per day operation from the Southern Pacific Coast mainline at Watsonville Junction (Pajaro) to the City of Santa Cruz.

Today life and the development, good or bad, of Santa Cruz County continues. The population is now some 200,000 persons with more coming. Major portions of the County which at one time were vast logging and lumbering operations are now devoted to State Parks. Logging does continue however, although in a much saner, ecological manner, with over 15,000,000 board-feet of lumber produced each year; sand and gravel leaves the County by the carload; and, farming is still a very dominant industry within the County.

To look at the future of Santa Cruz County, of course, is to look at its past. Because this is a railroad book we will confine its boundries to include only those things which pertain to the history of railroading within the County and the Industries which supported it. Rather than give a spike and tie account of each of the many miles of abandoned lines it is hoped that this book will be an anthology of all lines, written from the point of view of the life and times of those who lived it. In that vein there will be much use of personal experiences including those of this writer. It is my hope that as you read this you can come away with some of the, while not necessarily important at least, interesting history of the county. May you find as much enjoyment in reading this book and looking at its pictures as I did in writing the text and discovering each print.

Sincerely,

Rick Hamman

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