railroads

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

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!

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

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

Today at Researchers Anonymous, I had a big going-away party in the form of a two-hour lecture. I titled it “Santa Cruz Trains & Researching in the Digital Age”. It went overwhelmingly well and I timed it perfectly, including the ten-minute intermission. I decided against advertising the event publicly since it really wasn’t intended for the public but rather other researchers. I’ve posted the slide-show for the event here accessible by the “Lecture” link above… Read More »Lecture Recap