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railroads

Santa Cruz Trains is coming to your doorstep in March!

On this day 75 years ago, the last train ran over the Santa Cruz Mountains. Celebrate the railroad’s history with Santa Cruz Trains: Railroads of the Santa Cruz Mountains, a 352-page book of articles and photographs surveying the history of the communities that interacted daily with the railroads. The period spanned by this survey includes virtually the entirety of Santa Cruz and Los Gatos history, from the 1850s to the present. Each article discusses a… Read More »Santa Cruz Trains is coming to your doorstep in March!

The Freight Yard Divideth

The second article I wrote for my book, way back in September, was the “Santa Cruz Union Depot & Freight Yard”. It was an ambitious article forced early because I was writing my articles in geographic order, beginning with the Santa Cruz Wharves and ending five miles north of Boulder Creek (after a detour to Los Gatos and Vasona). Almost immediately, however, I found myself buried in too many details. The article encompassed more material… Read More »The Freight Yard Divideth

Location! Location! Location!

I’ve been rather quiet on this update blog lately, mostly because I’ve been writing a whole heck of a lot. Every day I’ve written 2-4 pages, with a few days consisting of even more. I’ve been amazingly surprised by how even the shortest article can produce two pages of text and images. Every time! And I really mean that. Only a few articles have failed to span multiple pages. I expect the last section on… Read More »Location! Location! Location!

The Great Writing Blitzkrieg

Starting last week, I have begun a writing blitzkrieg with the goal of having the first draft of my book done by the end of November. This attempt has not gone perfectly smooth. Two days were completely missed already while writing of the Santa Cruz Union Depot & Freight Yard article ate up two extra days and will likely eat up another in editing. Writing is neither easy nor entirely fun, but it is necessary… Read More »The Great Writing Blitzkrieg

New Sample Pages

A lot has happened in the past few months, the most important of which is that I have moved from Santa Cruz. That’s right, the author of Santa Cruz Trains: Railroads of the Santa Cruz Mountains will not longer be centered in Santa Cruz County. But don’t worry, I came prepared and I have a number of people working with me in Santa Cruz helping me when something is missing. That being said, I have… Read More »New Sample Pages