The Santa Cruz, Big Trees and Pacific Railway is operated as a seasonal tourist attraction in Northern California, also referred to as the "Beach Train". Its partner line, the Roaring Camp & Big Trees Narrow Gauge Railroad, is a

heritage railroad A heritage railway or heritage railroad (US usage) is a railway operated as living history to re-create or preserve railway scenes of the past. Heritage railways are often old railway lines preserved in a state depicting a period (or periods) i ...

. The Beach Train uses

diesel Diesel may refer to: * Diesel engine, an internal combustion engine where ignition is caused by compression * Diesel fuel, a liquid fuel used in diesel engines * Diesel locomotive, a railway locomotive in which the prime mover is a diesel engin ...

locomotives to haul vintage passenger cars over an route between

Felton, California Felton is a census-designated place (CDP) in Santa Cruz County, California, United States. The population was 4,489 as of 2020 census and according to the United States Census Bureau, the CDP has a total area of , all of it land. History Named ...

, and

Santa Cruz, California Santa Cruz ( Spanish for "Holy Cross") is the county seat and largest city of Santa Cruz County, in Northern California. As of the 2020 census, the city population was 62,956. Situated on the northern edge of Monterey Bay, Santa Cruz is a po ...

. The SCBT&P is one of very few railroads in North America with extensive street running rails, with trackage in Santa Cruz.

History

Santa Cruz Portland Cement 0-4-0 on Chestnut St

Santa Cruz Big Trees and Pacific Railway engine

The railway began life as the

narrow gauge A narrow-gauge railway (narrow-gauge railroad in the US) is a railway with a track gauge narrower than standard . Most narrow-gauge railways are between and . Since narrow-gauge railways are usually built with tighter curves, smaller structu ...

Santa Cruz and Felton Railroad, built between its namesake cities of Santa Cruz and Felton in 1875 to send logs and lumber down from the Santa Cruz Mountains to mills and wharves on

Monterey Bay Monterey Bay is a bay of the Pacific Ocean located on the coast of the U.S. state of California, south of the San Francisco Bay Area and its major city at the south of the bay, San Jose. San Francisco itself is further north along the coast, by ...

. In 1880, the

South Pacific Coast Railroad The South Pacific Coast Railroad (SPC) was a narrow gauge steam railroad running between Santa Cruz, California and Alameda, with a ferry connection in Alameda to San Francisco. The railroad was created as the Santa Clara Valley Railroad, founde ...

narrow gauge network completed its line from

Alameda An alameda is a Avenue (landscape), street or path lined with trees () and may refer to: Places Canada *Alameda, Saskatchewan, town in Saskatchewan **Grant Devine Dam, formerly ''Alameda Dam'', a dam and reservoir in southern Saskatchewan Chile ...

Los Gatos Los Gatos (, ; ) is an incorporated town in Santa Clara County, California, United States. The population is 33,529 according to the 2020 census. It is located in the San Francisco Bay Area just southwest of San Jose in the foothills of th ...

, then over the mountains to Felton, absorbing the Santa Cruz & Felton to complete the line to Santa Cruz. In 1887, the Southern Pacific purchased the South Pacific Coast and converted it to standard gauge over the course of more than a decade. Washouts closed the majority of the line in 1940, and the Santa Cruz-Olympia section remained in operation to serve the timber and sand industries. In 1981, further washouts brought closure of the line from Eblis to Olympia, until the line was purchased by Norman Clark, operator of the narrow gauge Roaring Camp & Big Trees Narrow Gauge Railroad and adjacent 1880s-themed park in Felton. Local legend has it that the name "Roaring Camp" is historical too, coming from the moniker that Mexican authorities gave to what was then, in the 1840s, the wild settlement of Zayante, founded by mountain man

Isaac Graham Isaac Graham (April 15, 1800 – November 8, 1863) was a fur trader, mountain man, and land grant owner in 19th century California. In 1830, he joined a hunting and trapping party at Fort Smith, Arkansas that included George Nidever. Graham ...

. The first train from Felton to Rincon ran in 1985 (the year after Clark's death from pneumonia that he acquired in his work to reopen this line) and the entire line to Santa Cruz was once again reopened to traffic some time later. Clark’s daughter Melani Jolley-Clark manages the company now. Trains originate at the Roaring Camp depot in Felton, but the original Southern Pacific Coast depot at New Felton (built in 1880) still stands and serves as administrative offices for the company. The freight shed, constructed from boards salvaged from the Boulder Creek to Felton log flume, is still used by the SCBT&P as a workshop. The original Santa Cruz & Felton never crossed the San Lorenzo River and continued through the middle of the town of Felton. On April 30, 2021, the railroad took over freight operations on a short section of the Santa Cruz Branch from

Watsonville Watsonville is a city in Santa Cruz County, California, located in the Monterey Bay Area of the Central Coast of California. The population was 52,590 according to the 2020 census. Predominantly Latino and Democratic, Watsonville is a self- ...

to Pajaro. The railroad uses a pair of CF7s acquired in June 2018 to connect customers in Watsonville to the main rail line at Pajaro. In January 2022, the railroad was threatened with adverse abandonment following a closed-door meeting of the Santa Cruz County Regional Transportation Commission, alleged to be part of a larger effort to replace the Santa Cruz Branch with a rail trail by two local special interest groups known as Trail Now and Santa Cruz Greenway. During the June primary of the

2022 California elections The 2022 California elections took place on November 8, 2022. The statewide direct primary election was held on June 7, 2022. California voters elected all of California's seats to the United States House of Representatives, one seat to the U ...

, a ballot measure, Measure D, was put on the ballot to authorize the

railbanking Railbanking is the act of preserving railroad rights-of-way for possible future use. Railbanking leaves the rail corridor, railbed, bridges or bridge right-of-way, and other infrastructure intact. This relieves the railroad's operator from the res ...

of the Santa Cruz Branch for an "interim trail"; it failed after an overwhelming "no" vote.

Locomotives

The SCBT&P utilizes two former

Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe The Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway , often referred to as the Santa Fe or AT&SF, was one of the larger railroads in the United States. The railroad was chartered in February 1859 to serve the cities of Atchison and Topeka, Kansas, and ...

CF7 The Santa Fe CF7 is an EMD F-unit railroad locomotive that has had its streamlined carbody removed and replaced with a custom-made, "general purpose" body in order to adapt the unit for switcher, switching duty. All of the conversions were perform ...

locomotives as its current motive power. These former

EMD F7 The EMD F7 is a model of diesel-electric locomotive produced between February 1949 and December 1953 by the Electro-Motive Division of General Motors (EMD) and General Motors Diesel (GMD). Although originally promoted by EMD as a freight-h ...

units were rebuilt by the Santa Fe at their

Cleburne, Texas Cleburne is a city in and the county seat of Johnson County, Texas, United States. As of the 2010 census, its population was 29,337. The city is named in honor of Patrick Cleburne, a Confederate general. Lake Pat Cleburne, the reservoir that pro ...

shops to their current, more practical arrangement following the end of passenger service. Both still carry their original ATSF road numbers, #2600 and #2641. In 2013 Locomotive 2641 was named in tribute to Gene O'Lague, a long time

Southern Pacific The Southern Pacific (or Espee from the railroad initials- SP) was an American Class I railroad network that existed from 1865 to 1996 and operated largely in the Western United States. The system was operated by various companies under the ...

engineer who was one of the original employees of Roaring Camp. A third locomotive, a Whitcomb 45-ton diesel switcher numbered 20, was retired in 1996 and stored; as of August 2022, the locomotive is being restored to operation for work train service. Santa Cruz-Portland Cement #2, an steam locomotive built by H.K. Porter in 1906, has visited the railroad in the past. In July 2018, two additional CF7 locomotives (#2467 and #2524) were acquired from the Texas Rock Crusher Railroad.

References

External links

*
Santa Cruz Trains
- Google Map of Santa Cruz historic train routes {{DEFAULTSORT:Santa Cruz Big Trees Pacific Railway Heritage railroads in California History of Santa Cruz County, California California railroads Switching and terminal railroads Spin-offs of the Southern Pacific Transportation Company Transportation in Santa Cruz County, California Tourist attractions in Santa Cruz County, California 3 ft gauge railways in the United States 1875 establishments in California

History

Locomotives

See also

References

External links