The Santa Cruz and Monterey Bay Railroad (SCMB), or Santa Cruz Branch Rail Line (SCBRL), is a historic railway running through

Santa Cruz County, California Santa Cruz County (), officially the County of Santa Cruz, is a county on the Pacific coast of the U.S. state of California. As of the 2020 census, the population was 270,861. The county seat is Santa Cruz. Santa Cruz County comprises the San ...

. It once ran operationally from Davenport to the Watsonville Junction where it connected to the

Union Pacific The Union Pacific Railroad , legally Union Pacific Railroad Company and often called simply Union Pacific, is a freight-hauling railroad that operates 8,300 locomotives over routes in 23 U.S. states west of Chicago and New Orleans. Union Pac ...

Coast Line. Over the years it has had many splays and connections to other local railroads over, through, and around the Santa Cruz Mountains. It is still active today, including a connection with the Roaring Camp Railroads line that makes regular trips between Felton and the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk.

History

The line was constructed as the

Santa Cruz Railroad The Santa Cruz Railroad was a narrow gauge railroad that ran from Santa Cruz to Pajaro, California. It started operation in 1874, running from the east bank of the San Lorenzo River to Soquel, California. With completion of a bridge over the Sa ...

between 1873–1876 and was laid with

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 ...

rail. After foreclosure, it was sold to

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 ...

(through a subsidiary Pacific Improvement Company) who converted the line to standard gauge and operated until the actual merger into Southern Pacific on 14 May 1888. The Aptos branch from

Aptos Aptos (Ohlone for "The People") is an unincorporated town in Santa Cruz County, California. The town is made up of several small villages, which together form Aptos: Aptos Hills-Larkin Valley, Aptos Village, Cabrillo, Seacliff, Rio del Mar, and S ...

Loma Prieta Loma Prieta (from Spanish ''loma'' -hill, ''prieta'' -dark) is high and is the highest peak in the Santa Cruz Mountains in Northern California. Although the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake was named for this mountain, the actual epicenter was ...

was built as the Loma Prieta Railroad in 1883 and abandoned in 1928. The line was extended to Davenport in 1905. Until 1940, the line connected in Santa Cruz with the former

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 ...

San Jose, California San Jose, officially San José (; ; ), is a major city in the U.S. state of California that is the cultural, financial, and political center of Silicon Valley and largest city in Northern California by both population and area. With a 2020 popu ...

as an alternative Southern Pacific Coast Line route north of Watsonville Junction. A

cement kiln Cement kilns are used for the pyroprocessing stage of manufacture of portland and other types of hydraulic cement, in which calcium carbonate reacts with silica-bearing minerals to form a mixture of calcium silicates. Over a billion tonnes of ...

in Davenport provided one hundred carloads weekly of inbound coal and outbound cement. Inbound lumber and outbound

refrigerator car A refrigerator car (or "reefer") is a refrigerated boxcar (U.S.), a piece of railroad rolling stock designed to carry perishable freight at specific temperatures. Refrigerator cars differ from simple insulated boxcars and ventilated boxcars (co ...

s of locally grown

Brussels sprout The Brussels sprout is a member of the Gemmifera cultivar group of cabbages (''Brassica oleracea''), grown for its edible buds. The leaf vegetables are typically 1.5–4.0 cm (0.6–1.6 in) in diameter and resemble miniature cabbages ...

artichoke The globe artichoke ('' Cynara cardunculus'' var. ''scolymus'' ),Rottenberg, A., and D. Zohary, 1996: "The wild ancestry of the cultivated artichoke." Genet. Res. Crop Evol. 43, 53–58. also known by the names French artichoke and green artich ...

s, and

lettuce Lettuce (''Lactuca sativa'') is an annual plant of the family Asteraceae. It is most often grown as a leaf vegetable, but sometimes for its stem and seeds. Lettuce is most often used for salads, although it is also seen in other kinds of food, ...

provided additional freight traffic. '' Suntan Special'' summer

excursion train An excursion train is a chartered train run for a special event or purpose. Examples are trains to major sporting event, trains run for railfans or tourists, and special trains operated by the railway company for employees and prominent customer ...

s carried 900 passengers per trip from San Francisco to the

Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk The Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk is an oceanfront amusement park in Santa Cruz, California. Founded in 1907, it is California's oldest surviving amusement park and one of the few seaside parks on the West Coast of the United States. Description ...

from July 1947 to September 1959. There was a

railway turntable In rail terminology, a railway turntable or wheelhouse is a device for turning railway rolling stock, usually locomotives, so that they can be moved back in the direction from which they came. Naturally, it is especially used in areas where ec ...

and 5-stall roundhouse in Santa Cruz, but steam locomotives were replaced by

EMD GP9 The EMD GP9 is a four-axle diesel-electric locomotive built by General Motors' Electro-Motive Division between 1954 and 1959. The GP9 succeeded the GP7 as the second model of EMD's General Purpose (GP) line, incorporating a new sixteen- cylin ...

s in 1955. Daily local freight service was replaced in 1982 by tri-weekly branch line trains operating at per hour including a

caboose A caboose is a crewed North American railroad car coupled at the end of a freight train. Cabooses provide shelter for crew at the end of a train, who were formerly required in railway switch, switching and Shunting (rail), shunting, keeping a l ...

until 1986. The

Pajaro River The Pajaro River (''pájaro'' is ''bird'' in Spanish) is a U.S. river in the Central Coast region of California, forming part of the border between San Benito and Santa Clara Counties, the entire border between San Benito and Santa Cruz Cou ...

bridge was damaged by the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake. The line came under ownership of Union Pacific in 1996.

County ownership

The Santa Cruz County Regional Transportation Commission purchased the rail corridor in 2012. At that time, freight operations were contracted out to

Iowa Pacific Holdings Iowa Pacific Holdings was a holding company that owned railroad properties across North America and the United Kingdom, as well as providing services such as railcar repairs, leasing, management and consulting services to other operators. The comp ...

, commencing service in November 2012. In 2018, Progressive Rail, Inc. was chosen as the replacement freight operator under a 10-year contract. The Transportation Commission is studying the possibility of rehabilitating the rail line for a new

commuter rail Commuter rail, or suburban rail, is a passenger rail transport service that primarily operates within a metropolitan area, connecting Commuting, commuters to a Downtown, central city from adjacent suburbs or commuter towns. Generally commuter r ...

service or rebuilding the corridor for bus rapid transit. A demonstration streetcar operated over the branch in October 2021.

Route

The right of way begins at Watsonville Junction, where it interchanges with Union Pacific's Coast Line. The line features street running sections in Watsonville and Santa Cruz where trains interact directly with roadway traffic. The

Santa Cruz, Big Trees and Pacific Railway 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 railro ...

operates part of its heritage railway service along SCMB tracks from the

to that railroad's main line east of the Beach Street roundabout, before turning onto its own tracks at the Santa Cruz Wye towards Felton on the former

mainline. After leaving Santa Cruz, the line runs parallel to California State Route 1 until Davenport, where the tracks end.

References

External links

Rail Projects
– Santa Cruz County Regional Transportation Commission {{California railroads Rail lines in California