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 Davenport may refer to: Places Australia *Davenport, Northern Territory, a locality *Hundred of Davenport, cadastral unit in South Australia **Davenport, South Australia, suburb of Port Augusta **District Council of Davenport, former local governm ...

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 struc ...

rail. After foreclosure, it was sold to Southern Pacific (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 Se ...

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 fiv ...

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 popul ...

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 (c ...

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 cabbage ...

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 foo ...

provided additional freight traffic. ''

Suntan Special The ''Suntan Special'' (sometimes styled as ''Sun Tan Special'') was a summer excursion train service operated by the Southern Pacific Railroad between San Francisco and Santa Cruz, California, from 1927 to 1959. History When ''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 locomotive A steam locomotive is a locomotive that provides the force to move itself and other vehicles by means of the expansion of steam. It is fuelled by burning combustible material (usually coal, oil or, rarely, wood) to heat water in the loco ...

s 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- cyli ...

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 switching and shunting, keeping a lookout for load shifting, dama ...

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 Coun ...

bridge was damaged by the

1989 Loma Prieta earthquake The 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake occurred on California's Central Coast on October 17 at local time. The shock was centered in The Forest of Nisene Marks State Park in Santa Cruz County, approximately northeast of Santa Cruz on a section of ...

. 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. Progressive Rail Inc. is a shortline railroad and owner of several other shortlines. PGR is directly operating several separate branches in Minnesota including the Airlake Terminal Railway. Progressive Rail also acquired the Wisconsin Northern ...

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 commuters to a central city from adjacent suburbs or commuter towns. Generally commuter rail systems are co ...

service or rebuilding the corridor for

bus rapid transit Bus rapid transit (BRT), also called a busway or transitway, is a bus-based public transport system designed to have much more capacity, reliability and other quality features than a conventional bus system. Typically, a BRT system includes ...

. 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 A street running train is a train which runs on a track built on public streets. The rails are embedded in the roadway, and the train shares the street with other users, such as pedestrians, cars and cyclists, thus often being referred to as r ...

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 railroa ...

operates part of its

heritage railway 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 ...

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