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Derek R. Whaley

A Southern Pacific train at Mayfield Station, ca 1886 [Mountain View Public Library]
A Southern Pacific train at Mayfield Station, circa 1886. Courtesy Mountain View Public Library.

Re-envisioning Santa Cruz Trains

Santa Cruz Trains did not begin as a brand, but as a single book: Santa Cruz Trains: Railroads of the Santa Cruz Mountains. When I first started my research on the topic in 2012, I had no idea that it would become a book until around mid-2013, and I didn’t actually begin working on it until April 2014. In many ways, I viewed the book as a natural expansion of Bruce MacGregor and Rick Hamman’s… Read More »Re-envisioning Santa Cruz Trains

SIDETRACKED: The Santa Cruz Beach to 1903 cover

Press Release: SIDETRACKED: The Santa Cruz Beach to 1903

The second SIDETRACKED book by Derek R. Whaley reveals the history of the Santa Cruz Beach before the Boardwalk SANTA CRUZ, CA, May 17, 2024—Exactly 100 years ago, the Giant Dipper on the Santa Cruz Beach opened to an excited public. It was a groundbreaking milestone in a history that stretched 75 years into the past, to a time when California was not even a state. SIDETRACKED: The Santa Cruz Beach to 1903 explores the… Read More »Press Release: SIDETRACKED: The Santa Cruz Beach to 1903