History puffs
Steam engines still are roaring on California railroad
Iwas a fourth-grader at Bradley Elementary in Santa Cruz County, California, when I first heard of the Roaring Camp Railroad. We were going on a field trip, and I was going to have my first train ride.
We were herded like so many sheep off the bus and into the stylized little camp. It was fun, but somehow, I came away knowing nothing more about the railroad than that it was a steam engine and there were lots of gigantic trees.
But that was the mid 1960s, and Roaring Camp Railroad and I have come a long way since then.
Recently, Jeff and I wanted to treat some of our kids and grandkids to a train ride on the Roaring Camp Railroad. We were vacationing with our oldest son Rob’s family. His wife, Marseille, is almost seven months pregnant, and some of the activities we had planned wouldn’t do for her.
From downtown Santa Cruz on the central coast of California, it took only about 20 minutes to arrive in Felton. The children enjoyed posing on the covered wagon, exploring the gift shop and candy counters.
We heard the promising train whistle in the distance. Tourists began gathering at the station and craning their necks along the curve of the narrow-gauge tracks.
At last the engine chugged into view, whistling and puffing steam. She rolled to a stop under the picturesque water tank, and we watched as the meter on the side of barrel tank measured out a hefty drink.
The Dixiana is called a Shay engine and was specifically designed for the logging camps of the West. Instead of the conjoined wheels, she has a direct drive gear system, ideal for the steep grades and tremendously heavy loads required by logging trains. The boiler burns oil rather than wood. Our conductor told us that oil burns cleaner, without the thick smoke typical of older steam engines.
Though built by Lima Locomotive Works in 1912, she was discovered rusting away in the Appalachian Mountains near an abandoned coal mine. Refurbished and brought back from ruin, the Dixiana, along with two other engines owned by Roaring Camp, have been designated as National Mechanical Engineering Historical Landmarks.
We climbed aboard the open passenger cars, settling the excited children along the sides of the cars. The whistle puffed out a rush of steam. The couplers clicked and clanked, and we were off.
We are used to our automobiles devouring the freeways with ravenous speed. Steam engines aren’t quite like that. We puffed along at about 2 miles per hour, a comfortable walking rate.
The conductor warned us to keep our hands inside the cars because of the poison oak growing along the tracks. He hopped off the train in the front to point out a healthy patch of it growing nearby and hopped back on at the end, once everyone had passed.
The Roaring Camp was established in 1963 by F. Norman Clark, who owned the land and wanted to bring the romance and color of steam railroading back to America. He built the railroad among the giant redwoods with rails that had been shipped around Cape Horn in 1881.
The train winds among the giant trees, the millennial stands of Sequoias that grow only on the western coasts of California and Oregon. Though the train engines and tracks in Roaring Camp are typical of logging equipment, the actual land where it is has never been logged. Joseph Warren Welch bought it in 1867 for the purpose of preserving the giant redwood trees from logging.
The land eventually was sold, and part became the Roaring Camp Railroad and another part was given to the state to become part of Henry Cowell State Park.
A spiral trestle on the usual course of the train ride burned beyond repair in 1976. Now the train switches back to crawl up the 10 percent grade to a bathroom stop at the top of the ride at Bear Camp. We got out to investigate a ring of giant coastal redwoods.
The ride down started with the violent puff puff puffing as the compression brakes were charged. The pristine forest is rendered misty like an elven glade when the engine blows off excess pressure.
We all loved the Roaring Camp train ride for the adventure, but the savor of vanishing history was sweet indeed.
Only in America. God bless it.