Comments on: Railroad Embankments on Santa Cruz’s North Coast: Why You Can’t See the Ocean More!

By: Ranger Gaudinski

Ranger Gaudinski — Sun, 11 Sep 2016 21:13:27 +0000

In reply to Don B.. Thanks for that info!

By: Don B.

Don B. — Sun, 11 Sep 2016 19:21:20 +0000

Building a single trestle would have been the standard procedure for this type of construction at that time. With at least some cooperation between the Ocean Shore and SP at this stage of the construction process, one or the other company would have erected a single, temporary trestle as a means to bridge the gap. With the trestle in place, construction crews could then dump as much fill as the plans required, which could have included room for multiple tracks. The fill wasn’t necessarily there to support “heavy” trains so much as it was there to eliminate a wooden trestle that would require long-term care. A substantial trestle is sufficient to support all the weight you can throw at it, but they’re susceptible to fire, they wash out, and they require periodic inspections and maintenance. If the line warranted the expense, and the company had the capitol up front, fill eliminated a lot of headaches.

If the usual maps are not showing you what you want to see, railroad evaluation maps from the WWI era might give you a better idea of track arrangements prior to OSE abandonment. Just a matter of whether or not the eval survey was conducted while the Ocean Shore was still intact.

By: Ranger Gaudinski

Ranger Gaudinski — Fri, 01 Jul 2016 04:19:50 +0000

In reply to Derek Whaley. Thanks Derek for that interesting info!

By: Derek Whaley

Derek Whaley — Fri, 01 Jul 2016 03:40:03 +0000

What’s surprising about the “filling in” photograph above from 1906 is that only a single track is visible there where there should be two: one for the Coast Line Railroad and one for the Ocean Shore Electric Railroad. The fact that there is only one means that the Ocean Shore was exclusively responsible for filling the trestles and that the Coast Line only came in afterwards. What is more curious is that the Coast Line must have made room on those berms for its own track after the trestle was filled. The only real maps we have of this double-track arrangement are inaccurate Ocean Shore survey maps. The actual USGS maps for the period are woefully inadequate. It makes one wonder if the two railroads ultimately shared the same track from Wilder Ranch to Davenport.