Happy New Year everyone! This is Derek R. Whaley, your friendly neighborhood author and editor. 2025 was a busy year for me with two book releases, another 12 detailed blog posts on SantaCruzTrains.com, and 365 Instagram posts showcasing Santa Cruz train history, not counting my other pursuits and my day job. One thing that has suffered, though, is my goal of publishing Santa Cruz Trains: Railroads of the Santa Cruz Coast in time for Christmas 2026. Currently, I am behind schedule and to accomplish this goal on time, sacrifices have to be made. Therefore, I must announce that my monthly blog posts will be reduced to a quarterly release schedule for the foreseeable future.
There are currently 382 individual articles published on SantaCruzTrains.com, some of which are nearly verbatim chapters from current and upcoming books, and others are of such a quality that they may be included in a book someday. Other articles are lacking in quality or are missing vital information that has been discovered since the article was published. There was a time once when I published a new article every week—52 articles a year!—but quality suffered, so I reduced it to fortnightly and then monthly. With each reduction, the quality of new and rewritten articles improved. Today, I am quite happy with the quality of nearly everything published since 2020. Earlier articles still require revision and that will inform the articles I choose to publish quarterly going forward. But I also enjoy writing and researching new material. Two of the new articles I plan to write this year focus on Congress Junction Station outside Saratoga and the Saratoga & Almaden Railroad. The other two articles will likely be re-writes or new articles relating to the Santa Cruz or Davenport Branch. The key take-away of this announcement is that SantaCruzTrains.com is not going anywhere, but the content on the website is of a quality that I am generally happy with at the moment.
More importantly, most of you lovely readers really just want my new book! Santa Cruz Trains: Railroads of the Santa Cruz Coast has been in some state of development since early 2018. My habit of getting distracted with other publishing opportunities inevitably delayed me in getting it done, but that’s over now. Before I publish another Santa Cruz history book, I am getting this one into your hands. This book together with Santa Cruz Trains: Railroads of the Santa Cruz Mountains will form the core of my history of Santa Cruz regional railroading, though two other in-progress books—The Road to San Francisco and Companies & Customers of the Santa Cruz Lines—are intended to complete this magnum opus. With the 150th anniversary of the completion of the Santa Cruz Railroad and the 250th anniversary of the founding of the United States both celebrated this year, it seems only right that this important work on Santa Cruz County’s railroading history be released around the same time. It may also help provide important context to current railroad projects since it includes among its pages the history of the today’s Santa Cruz Branch Rail Line.
Now that I confess that I’m behind schedule on my book, you may be wondering what I have completed. Well, the cover is pretty much done, the internal formatting style is mostly finalized, and the text for the entire first section is complete, though it still needs to be edited down a little to provide adequate room for photographs. The photos are mostly selected, but I need to contact owners for better quality copies of three of them and a photographer to approve permission to use a fourth one. I also am still missing satisfying photographs of Miller and Corporal Stations, though I have some leads for the latter. For the rest of the book, four articles are completely done but not formatted, and thirteen articles are partially done but require more research. That leaves me with about 33 unwritten articles, 3 appendices, 5 maps, and miscellaneous other items to complete.
For those more visually inclined, here’s an outline of my book (completed chapters in bold, partially completed in Italics):
Acknowledgments
General Introduction and Methodology
PART 1: Southern Pacific’s Watsonville Branch
Part 1 Introduction
1–Carnadero
2–Nema
3–Miller
4–Corporal
5–Sargent
6–Betabel
7–Newria
8–Chittenden
9–Logan
10–Aromas
11–Sand Cut
12–Vega
13–Watsonville Junction
PART 2: The Santa Cruz Railroad
Part 2 Introduction
1–Watsonville
2–Nuga
3–Ellicott
4–Cristo
5–Manresa
6–Leonard
7–Farley
8–Aptos
9–New Brighton
10–Capitola
11–Soquel
12–Opal
13–Del Mar
14–Twin Lakes
15–Seabright
16–Casino
17–Santa Cruz Union Depot
18–Park Street
PART 3: The Loma Prieta Railroad
Part 3 Introduction
1–Ready
2–Molino
3–Loma Prieta
4–Spring Creek
5–Monte Vista (I)
6–Monte Vista (II)
PART 4: The Ocean Shore Railway and Coast Line Railroad
Part 4 Introduction
1–Santa Cruz (OS)
2–California Street (CL)
3–Garfield Avenue (OS)
4–Younglove Avenue (CL)
5–Orby (CL)
6–Rapetti (OS)
7–Wilder (OS) / Dairy Buildings (CL)
8–Wilder (CL)
9–Parsons Beach (OS)
10–Scaroni (OS) / Gordola (CL)
11–Enright (OS) / Majors (CL)
12–Lagos (OS) / Laguna Creek (CL)
13–Yellow Bank (OS) / Yellowbank Dairy (CL)
14–Liddell (OS) / Liddell (CL)
15–Davenport (OS) / Lower Crossing Davenport (CL)
16–Davenport (CL) / Bluegum (OS)
17–Davenport Landing (OS)
18–Scott (OS)
19–Scott Junction (OS)
20–Folger (OS)
21–Swanton (OS)
Appendix 1: Stations by Mile Marker
Appendix 2: Station Name Changes
Appendix 3: Timeline of Events
Glossary
Bibliography and Credits
Index
In case that didn’t whet your appetite for Santa Cruz Trains: Railroads of the Santa Cruz Coast, how about a sample article? Check out the spread below (open the image in a new tab for a larger version). Let me know what you think about the layout. Note that the footnotes no longer appear at the end of the article but have been moved to a section at the back of the book (not previewed below). Please feel free to contact me at author@santacruztrains.com if you have any comments or concerns regarding the layout.
I hope that satisfies everyone for the time being. I apologize that there won’t be many blog posts this year, but I will try to do more of these author diaries to make up for the lack of new material. I will continue to post daily colorized photographs on Instagram, as I have been doing since 2020, so perhaps that will be enough for many of you. And SantaCruzTrains.com isn’t going anywhere—it just can’t be my primary concern at the moment if I want to get my new book out on schedule. So stay tuned, sign up for my e-newsletter, and prepare for the most detailed history of Santa Cruz’s trains to hit the bookshelves. At least until my next book comes out. 😉