I remember the excitement of the up and coming passenger service returning to the former Southern Pacific branch line from Santa Cruz to Felton.
The time was the mid-80s but my dad remembered the days when stream locomotives labored up the grade above our cabin. The drivers would slip on the wet morning rails (every foamer loves a bit of wheel slip) and they would back down the grade, sanding the rails as they went to have another go.
It was Norman Clark’s dream to one day purchase the line and operate a passenger train on the standard gauge rails to Santa Cruz. Clark was the founder of the narrow gauge railroad at Roaring Camp.
Unfortunately Clark died before seeing his dream come to fruition.
My dad was certainly excited to see this rail dream come true. It would be exciting to again hear the sounds of trains crossing the trestle at Shady Gulch, just up hill from my cabin and hearing the engineer blow the grade crossing on Highway 9.
I remember visiting the yard in Felton with my dad and looking at the Big Trees & Pacific’s first locomotive, a 45 ton Whitcomb diesel. My dad was always taking pictures.
We rode the train during the first few years of its existence. It only went as far as the old Santa Cruz Depot. The train now stops outside the Boardwalk.
It was a long time ago when you could travel from Santa Cruz over the mountains to San Francisco by train.
Since the first run, the railroad has purchased two former Atchison, Topeka, & Santa Fe EMD CF-7s and rolling stock from back east. For the first part of the loco’s service they bore the livery of the blue and gold of Santa Fe. They are now painted redwood red.
The crew prepares the EMD CF7 2600 for her eight mile run to Santa Cruz. Gotta keep the windows clean.Locomotive 2600 starting out from Felton on its way to Santa Cruz. The train runs along the boundary of Henry Cowell State Park.
What is unusual on a tourist railroad is the amount of street running the railroad covers in Santa Cruz. Street running is where the trains runs on the same right of way as cars. The trains runs along Chestnut Street and Beach Street.
2600 with a nine car consist running along Chestnut Street. Note the blue car on the far right yielding to the train, good idea!
To really understand something, more than just taking a photograph in a fraction of a second, you should take the time to draw the object you hope to understand.
I wanted to understand the design and engineering of a Shay geared locomotive. I knew that at the end of the drawing, I would know a Shay so much better. My subject was the Westside Lumber Company three truck Shay No. 15 (this is a sister to the new Roaring Camp No. 14).
I was copying a picture from one of my favorite books when I was a kid: The Illustrated Encyclopedia of North American Locomotives by Brian Hollingsworth.
This was not a sketch but a drawing and it was very much more involved, meaning I was taking lots of measurements and applying them to my sketchbook, focusing on proportions and details. The drawing was done over a series of evenings. This was the opposite of a loose continuous-line sketch. I liked the process but it was taxing. I was wearing the hat of a draftsman not a sketcher.
My finished drawing.
After drawing a Shay in great detail, I wanted to sketch a real live Shay under steam, in a continuous-line way.
That’s easily done from my Santa Cruz digs by driving 15 minutes up Highway 9 to Roaring Camp & Big Trees Railroads.
I originally wanted to sketch the Shay and Heisler lined up next to each other at the engine shed. At the front gate I learned the difference of asking for permission and asking for forgiveness.
Now it was time for Plan B: sketching the Dixiana at the depot. I had sketched the locomotive from the same perspective before, but this time I wanted to render the scene in a continuous-line sketch. I knew that I would only have about 10 minutes to sketch the scene before the train departed for Bear Mountain.
The builder’s plate on No. 1’s boiler.
Before the train arrived, I sketched the old rusted wagon top boiler on display in the grounds. It was built by Lima in 1912 and used on the No. 1 until it was retired in 1976.
No. 1 passing by on its way to the depot. Here you can see why a Shay is called a geared locomotive.
The two truck Shay backed into the depot from the engine house with her six car consist. Now it was time to sketch. The looser the better (featured sketch).
No. 1 Dixiana pulls out from the depot on the way up to Bear Mountain. A sketch of Dixiana on the first page of my new panoramic journal with the real deal in the background.
From my redwood cabin deck I love to hear the steam whistle from the No. 1 Shay “Dixiana” echoing down the San Lorenzo Valley from Roaring Camp and Big Trees Narrow Gauge Railroad in Felton.
I will be hearing a new whistle coming down the valley in the near (or not so near) future.
On August 9, 2026, Westside Lumber Co. No. 14 was delivered to Felton.
No. 14 is a three tuck Shay built by the Lima Locomotive Works in Lima, Ohio in 1916. Shays are geared locomotives designed to tackle steep grades (up to 9%) on lumber railroads. What they lack in speed they have in power and torque in spades. Between 1880 and 1944, Lima built 2,770 Shays.
No. 14 was originally built for the Sierra Nevada Wood & Lumber Company. In 1937 the company went bankrupt and the Shay made its way to the Westside Lumber Company in 1939. The locomotive was in service there until the mill shut down in 1961.
No. 14 moved around to other museums and railroads before finally making her way to Roaring Camp.
No. 14’s builder’s plate.
On Saturday morning I headed up to Felton to see the 110 year old new kid on the block.
Roaring Camp and Big Trees was founded by Norman Clark in 1962 as a narrow gauge (36 inches) steam tourist railroad.
The railroad has such a historic collection of geared steam logging locomotives that the American Society of Mechanical Engineers designated three of the railroad’s locomotives as Historic Mechanical Landmark #134 in 1988.
The historic landmark marker on the depot.Two of Roaring Camp’s Mechanical Landmarks: Shay No. 1 “Dixiana” and Heisler No. 2 “Tuolumne” steamed up and getting ready for the day at the locomotive shed.
I walked around the shops and No. 14 was on a track leading into the locomotive shed. I pulled out my sketchbook and started a continuous-line sketch of the newly acquired three truck Shay (featured sketch).
On the right is the No. 2 Heisler under steam waiting to pull out and connect with her five car consist. On the left, No. 14 can be seen through the shed. The locomotive had arrived just six days before.The star of the show and the real workhorse of the railroad. The first Shay of Roaring Camp, No. 1 “Dixiana” coupled with her six car consist. The two railroads in one shot. In the foreground is the steam narrow gauge railroad and in the background is the standard gauge Big Trees & Pacific which runs down to the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk, as well as passing right above my cabin.
On a riverside rock I noticed a black and blue damselfly. I later found out it was a vivid dancer (what a name). The dancer perched horizontally on the rock with wings held parallel to it abdomen, dragonflies hold their wings at a 90 degree angle from their body.
If I thought sparrows (little brown jobs), gulls, and peeps (shorebirds) were hard to identify then putting a species name or even a genus to a dragon or damselfly is supremely daunting!
It felt good to be a novice again.
I started a spread anchored in the bottom left corner by a sketch of the river rocks and the damselfly perched on one of them. The black and blue wonder spent a lot of its time sallying forth and chasing away other damselflies (I assume it was of the same species) like a hummingbird guarding its patch of flowers.
A bit of blue amongst the green.
I traced out the damselfly’s path and its return to the same rock perch.
Through sketching, I learn and on the top of the spread I drew the anatomy of a damselfly.
The eyes of the damselfly are massive in proportion to its body. These aerial hunters have excellent eyesight.
Now if I could only identify the large black and yellow dragonfly cruising above my head. I’m hoping it’s the western river cruiser (Macromia magnifica).
Lazy afternoons in August found me sitting in my Crazy Creek chair, feet in the San Lorenzo, sucking on some suds, and reading John D. McDonald’s Cape Fear.
I love being surrounded by nature. It is really a sensory sweater with the sound of the river over rocks just upstream and the rattle of the belted kingfisher. Splashes of color fill my view, the flash of the said kingfisher passing by, inches off the water and the vibrant dragonflies and butterflies patrolling the shore.
And there is a feel of the cool river water running over my feet and the sweeping brush of the crawdad’s antennas followed by an exploratory pinch.
Crayfish investigating my foot. (I’m not dead yet!)
Watching the reflection from f the river play across the far bank inspired me to poetry. I included the poem on the left hand side of the spread.
Sitting in a gray swivel chair with gray skies above and the United Boeing 737 below at gate E8.
This was not the plane taking me to Houston nor that plane continuing on to Quito. This plane was heading off somewhere else.
I pull out my sketchbook and pens and start sketching in a continuous line, starting with the nose of the Boeing and reaching back to the tail then reaching out to the starboard wing and down below to the turbine engine and back to the front landing gear.
I have done this sketch many times before at different airports of different planes at different gates.
This is a touchstone sketch, one that I return to while killing time at an airport.
Perhaps it’s not really killing time but a meditation after the chaos of security lines and X-rays, of taking off your belt and hat only to put them on again.
Yes it is a meditation as time flies by (pun intended) and moves ever closer to 8:15, boarding time.
Airport sketch at Quito. UIO is a beautiful setting in the middle of the Andes.
On a Wednesday I became a tourist in my own city and headed over Twin Peaks to the Ferry Building.
I went from the N Judah to the F Market to Fisherman’s Wharf. This is the epicenter of the tourist industry in San Francisco. I walked to Aquatic Park to the ship-like structure that is the now the Maritime Museum. It was originally built as the Aquatic Park Bathhouse and opened in January 1939.
I love this historical structure which is great example of Streamline Moderne. Being on the water, the building looks like it could sail away at any moment.
Is this a ship or a bathhouse? Well the answer is neither!
The Aquatic Bathhouse has served as a number of uses, most controversial as a Casio for the rich. The building now houses the Maritime Museum.
The murals by Hilaire Hiler on the ground floor are otherworldly. It took visitors minds away from the Depression. Benny Bufano’s frog sculpture. At least I think it is supposed to be a frog.
I picked a spot along the curve of Aquatic Park to sketch the former bathhouse in my panoramic sketchbook.
On the other side of the spread I added the Fort Mason Beltline Tunnel, which is just a short distant from my first sketching position. This tunnel is historical and featured in a classic 1971 film.
In the Don Seigel film Dirty Harry, starring Clint Eastwood, the serial killer Scorpio (based on the real Zodiac Killer) sends Inspector Harry Callahan on a wild goose chase around San Francisco. One scene features Eastwood going through the tunnel when he is stopped by some unfortunate thugs.
The State Beltline Railroad ran along the Embarcadero and served the piers along the waterfront. The railroad was in operation from 1890 to 1993.
A very scrawny urban coyote walks by the boarded up Beltline Tunnel.
After sketching some Bay Area railroad ferry history, I wanted to sketch the 1930 railroad bridge that killed off the ferry between Benicia and Port Costa.
As rail traffic increased (both passenger and freight) and the rail ferries aged and needed repair or replacement, this caused more delays on the Overland Route (not to mention delays caused by fog). Southern Pacific looked into building another ferry but soon realized that a rail bridge spanning the strait was the best solution.
The railroad bridge was built for Southern Pacific Railroad between the years 1928 to 1930.
The bridge is impressive because it is the second longest railroad bridge (5,603 ft 6in long) in the country and the longest west of the Mississippi.
The railroad bridge is now flanked to two automobile bridges that cross the Carquinez Strait. One span was built in 1962 while the other completed in 2007.
The longest railroad bridge west of the Mississippi.
Because the bridge is relatively low to the water, 70 feet in fact, a midsection is a drawbridge that allows tall ships to pass through the strait. When the drawbridge is opened, it gives passing ships 135 feet of clearance.
Five locomotives are on point of this Union Pacific westbound mixed consist freight as it comes onto the bridge. This long freight train would take quite a few ferry passages to shuttle across the strait before the bridge was built in 1930. Modern freight trains can be one to two miles long.There were quite a few car carriers on the consist. The area on the Benicia side is new car transfer point.
Foamer at the Bridge
On a Sunday morning I headed up to the northern side of the Benicia- Martinez Railroad Bridge to the vista point, flanked by the two road bridges, to watch some trains transit the historic bridge.
The view southeast from Vista Point. The railroad bridge is in the middle. The newer road bridge (2007) is on the left, the other (1962) is on the right. A northbound Capital Corridor train number 720 crossing the bridge. This trains’s final destination is Sacramento. The good thing about the Vista Point is that you can see northbound trains approaching across the Carquinez Strait like California Zephyr train number 6 running three minutes late. Once the train departs Martinez it will cross the bridge about four minutes later. California Zephyr Number 6 crossing the bridge. Next stop Davis.I have yet to cross the bridge on the Zephyr as I usually board the train further north in Colfax.
The “downtown” of Port Costa is only about a block long. The historic buildings here only hint at the size and importance of the town over 120 years ago.
Standing in front of the massive McNear’s Warehouse you get a sense of the scale of importance of Port Costa.
The wonderful sign on McNear’s Warehouse. The railroad is both central to the sign and to the history of Port Costa.
In the distant past, that one block contained a grocery store, a barber shop, a shoemaker, a Wells Fargo office, three hotels, a department store, and eight saloons!
Now Port Costa has only one hotel and I’m not sure it’s open.
The concrete warehouse was built in 1886 by G. W. McNear. It was the first fireproof building in Contra Costa County having survived the fires of 1889, 1909, 1924, and 1941 (as well as withstanding two major earthquakes). It was built to store wheat, hay, and potatoes.
The warehouse now serves many purposes; restaurant, bar, post office, and apartments.
Port Costa was a busy railroad center and port. The railroad facilities included many spur tracks, a 70 foot turntable, an engine house, oil and water tanks, a passenger and freight depot, and many warehouses.
Map of Port Costa circa 1925, based on a John Signor illustration.
What made Port Costa tick was the railroad. At the edge of the Carquinez Strait there were two ferry boat slips where ferry boats loaded and unloaded trains, both passenger and freight, from the 10 minute crossing to Benicia. Because there was no railroad bridges spanning the strait, this was only way to cross and save time and many miles.
The train ferry Solano served for 51 years until the Benicia-Martinez Railroad Bridge was completed in 1930 for Southern Pacific, rendering the ferry obsolete.
The Chicago bound California Zephyr passing through the former location of the ferry slips on the south side of Carquinez Strait. The train will cross over to the north side just past Martinez on the Benicia-Martinez Railroad Bridge (more about this bridge in the next post).
The first train ferry to operated between Benicia and Port Costa was the Solano which was built by the Central Pacific Railroad (later Southern Pacific) in 1879. She was 425 feet long and 116 feet wide. The steam powered side-wheeler was that largest train ferry of its type. It could ferry a 24 car passenger train with its locomotive or a 48 car freight train on the four sets of tracks on the lower deck. In a 24 hour period, the Solano would make 36 to 46 crossings. She was a real workhorse.
Sketched based on a period postcard of the Solano.
The Solano’s last run was on November 1, 1930 and she was decommissioned along with her sister ship the Contra Costa.
There were many steam powered ferries that moved people and freight on the waterways of the Bay Area. Today, very few exist. The Eureka at Hyde Street Pier and the Berkeley in San Diego come to mind. Some were turned into floating hotels and gambling boats but have since burned and been destroyed. Most were scrapped, very few were preserved for posterity.
I was amazing to find out that the Solano still existed! She was not preserved and is a far cry from her proud days as the largest train ferry in the world. She is to be found about 25 miles east of Port Costa in Antioch.
In 1931 the Solano was moved upstream to be used as a breakwater for a marina in Antioch. The hull was sunk where it remains to this day.
Looking at the massive hull it appears to be a verdant island and the only giveaway that it was once a mighty train ferry is a rusted A-shaped structure projecting above the green “island”.
The A-shaped structure is the walking beam of her engine. The second walking beam has fallen over.
The first Saturday morning in June found me trackside in Port Costa sketching some California history.
I parked near the historic McNear’s Warehouse (more about this in another post) and walked west along the double parallel tracks looking for a sketching spot along the beach that spoke to me.
I had to be very aware here because my path is on the main line with a lot of passenger and freight traffic.
After about a five minute walk I found a short path down from the railbed to the shoreline with a nice sketching log to perch on and a great view before me.
Before me were many wooden pylons breaking above the tide. So what’s the deal with a bunch of sticks?
Bunch of sticks!
The pylons were what remains of the railroad, storage warehouses, and ferry complex and spoke of a very busy past at Port Costa.
Engineers had a challenge fitting warehouses, ferry slips, and railroad maintenance buildings and tracks into the narrow strip of land between the shoreline and the steep hills on the southern edge of the Carquinez Strait. The solution was to build out into the water.
The pylons are the only evidence of the Central/Southern Pacific Railroad complex.
Of course any chapter of historical wooden structures involve one common element: fire. The complex burned and wood rot took what remained.
Before there where any rail bridges crossing the strait they had to use ferry boats that travelled a mile from Benicia to Port Costa, a trip that took about ten minutes.
Instead of unloading trains of their passengers or freight and reloading them onto boats for the short crossing, the trains themselves were loaded onto train ferry boats (locomotives and all) on four separate tracks.
I started my sketch at mile marker 3/4 at 8:15 AM. I was keeping my eyes and ears on the double tracks to my left, especially as the clock approached 9 because the eastbound California Zephyr was due to pass Port Costa at about that time.
From previous posts it’s plain, I love the California Zephyr. I have traveled on the longest AMTRAK route four times and it was always a great experience.
In that 45 minutes, four trains passed (three passenger and one freight). This is a busy part of the high iron!
At 8:30 a mixed consist freight pulled into the “hole” to let two Capital Corridors pass.
A westbound freight waiting at mile post 3/4 for two passenger trains to pass.
The freight was stopped long enough for me to climb aboard and there were a few good rides on the consist but I resisted the urge to abandon teaching to take up the hobo life.
After the passenger trains passed, the UP freight got the high ball and the hiss of the brakes being released told me that the freight was about to move. The cars creaked to life and the train took up slack and resumed its westward journey.
California Zephyr Train No. 6 passing the remains of the train and ferry complex at Port Costa. Final destination, Chicago, Illinois. Just to the right of the end of the Zephyr is the town of Port Costa. More about this historic town in my next post.
