Santa Cruz Trains: Reflections on the Mountain Route

"Hills and mountains covered with redwood forests, valleys and ravines in which marvelous ferns grow and wild flowers abound, and through which gurgling brooks flow in crystal streams, give abundant scope for romping and climbing by young America."
Oakland Daily Evening Tribune, April 20, 1888

For three decades, the South Pacific Coast Railroad steamed across the Santa Cruz Mountains between Los Gatos and Santa Cruz, California. It passed through what many deemed the most picturesque forests and meadows in the United States. Collected here for the first time are many of these reflections, gathered from newspapers, letters, magazines, books, and pamphlets, describing this wild, wondrous place. These quotations are paired with rare, never-published photographs of the narrow-gauge railroad and the beautiful lands through which it passed.