Miniature Railroads: Ramohs Pacific Railroad

One could say that the hills were alive with the sounds of miniature railroads, and it would be true. In the hills above Los Gatos between the town and Almaden Valley, Ralph Morrell Heintz built a quite small 7.5-inch gauge railroad on his private hillside estate that he named the Ramohs Pacific Railroad.

Ralph Heintz's W6RH ham radio registration card, showing him driving his miniature train while holding his parrot, Shorty. His wife, Sophie, and dog, Gilmore, are in the trailing cars, ca 1960. [Engineering and Technology History Wiki]

The property on which the Heintz family built their ranch was originally owned in the early 1900s by James Augustus Bacigalupi, first president of the Bank of Italy and a founder of the Bank of America. Somewhere on the property, a large mansion was built, and for decades the property was simply known to locals as "The Mansion". It burned down in 1965 and the property was mostly abandoned by the time Ralph and Sophie Heintz purchased a portion of it, mostly likely in the 1950s.

Ralph Heintz holding a radiotron tube, August 1927. [History San José]

Ralph was a chemical and physical engineer and inventor, cited as having over 200 patents to his name including four inventions that are currently at the Smithsonian. His wife was a U.S. Marine Corps ham radio operator who ran the radios for the Wilkins Expedition to the North Pole in 1928 and the Byrd Expedition to the South Pole, while also serving in World War II. After moving to Blossom Hill Road, they operated an apricot orchard and Ralph continued to invent in his small workshop. Most of the rest of the property remained undeveloped, a playground for the wealthy but little else. The Heintz family owned the property as a recreational site but spent most of their time in Los Altos.

Peter O’Malley and his siblings and parents riding on the Ramohs Pacific Railroad with the tunnel in the background, ca 1971. Photo by Ralph Heintz. [Peter O’Malley]

At some point, probably in 1962 (the date the tunnel was completed), Ralph got the idea to build a small miniature railroad on the hilltop above his property. He probably operated it as a family project as his son was a member of the Golden Gate Live Steam Club for many years. The site of the railroad was remote, which was a good and bad thing in the end. Ralph was friends with Billy Jones, and this relationship may explain his desire to build his own railroad.

Children riding the Heintz locomotive at a Golden Gate Live Steamers event, 2002. [Golden Gate Live Steamers]

The route itself was approximately 0.35 miles long, which included a loop on the east end and a turntable at the west end. An engine and stock barn was kept beside the turntable. More impressively was the short tunnel that Heintz had installed mid-way down the track, the remains of which are still visible today, although one portal has entirely been buried. The surviving tunnel portal is eight feet wide and was probably 6 feet tall, and it extended through the hillside for 150 feet. Heintz personally constructed the locomotive and rolling stock himself, probably using castings and plans from Little Engines Atlantic.

The Heintz locomotive on a raised track at a GGLS event, 2002. [Golden Gate Live Steamers]

The railroad probably only operated for two decades or less. Ralph fell terminally ill in the early 1970s but only passed in 1980. In 1975, his son Ralph Heintz Jr. donated 4,000 feet of track to the Tilden Open Space in Berkeley, which eventually became the Golden Gate Live Steamers. There is still a section of track there known as the Heintz Loop. This track was undoubtedly the entirety of the trackage owned by the Heintz family and it seems likely that the entire route was scrapped at this time. It is speculated that the rolling stock was also given to Tilden, although evidence of this transfer is currently lacking. The locomotive for Heintz's railroad was sold in the mid-2000s to a member of GGLS and is currently undergoing a rebuild and will be repainted blue when it is completed.

The surviving tunnel portal on the Heintz Railroad beside the current shoofly trail. [Bill Dawkins]

Locals who grew up near the property remember that the tunnel remained open for a short time but was eventually filled and buried, as it remains today. Indeed, the entire property was largely abandoned in the 1970s and locals regularly trespassed to use the old mansion swimming pool, walk the trails, ride four-wheelers, and use the tunnel in various ways. Angel Ayala, the property caretaker and gardener, continued to live on the estate for many years in the so-called Summerhill House which was mid-way up the hillside.

Golden Spike ceremony of the Heintz Loop, 1975. [John Haines]

In 1998, Ralph Jr. deeded the property to the University of California's Cecilia Vaughn Memorial Fund for ophthalmic research. It was resold and subdivided to Summerhill Homes which built the Heritage Grove Neighborhood community on the site. The majority of the 91 acres (about 80 of it), however, was given to the Town of Los Gatos where it now operates as the Heintz Open Space Preserve. The former railroad right-of-way is a walking trail within this area called the Valley View Trail, although only the portion at the top of the grade is the actual right-of-way. At the base of the hill, the Heintz farmhouse has been restored and is now a home, while his workshop—the so-called Ramohs Laboratory—remains a place of historical interest with appropriate signage.

Geo-Coordinates & Access Rights:

37.228˚N, 121.925˚W

The Heintz Open Space is publicly accessible via Regent Drive off of Blossom Hill Road. The Valley View Trail (at left from the trailhead) is relatively steep but short and at the top of the grade, it is flat for some distance. This flat area is the right-of-way and along it, you will notice the top of the former railroad tunnel which is now collapsed and mostly buried. The Heintz farmhouse is located on Regent Drive at the end of Ramohs Way.

Citations & Credits:

• Dawkins, Bill. Personal correspondence.
• Golden Gate Live Steamers. 
• Handy, Jim. Personal correspondence.
• Haskey, John. Personal correspondence.
• "Heintz and Kaufman," Engineering and Technology History Wiki.
• Maiten, Michael S. Personal correspondence.
• Phelps, Dale B. Personal correspondence.
• Pope-Handy, Mary. "The Heritage Grove Neighborhood in Los Gatos and the Heintz Open Space Preserve". The Valley of Hearts Delight. 2011.
• "The 1981 Heintz Lecture". The Proctor Bulletin, 3:4 (1981).
• Wiley, Neil. "Heintz Open Space". Mountain Network News.

Kearney Street Extension Spurs

As the Western Beet Sugar Refinery north of Watsonville Depot shut its doors in the early 1900s, other businesses began popping up along the spur that once supported the processing plant. Kearney Street itself was extended across Walker Street in the late 1900s, running parallel to the Southern Pacific Railroad's Santa Cruz Branch as it headed west. The Hihn-Hammond Lumber Company was one of the first of these opportunistic operations that settled on the bulk of the site in late 1911. However, at the end of Kearney Ext immediately beside the still-present Pajaro Valley Consolidated Railroad tracks (which marked the original end of the street), a new Chinese-owned apple drier opened up shop. Similarly, two small fruit packing houses opened on the south side the street between the fruit driers and Walker with platforms at the back suggesting an undepicted freight spur that ran off the old Western Beet track to parallel the Santa Cruz Branch.

Carralitos Fruit Growers Inc., warehouse beside the tracks in Watsonville, c. 1916. (fine art america)

Franich Bros advertisement, c. 1920s. (Boston Public Library)

By 1920, the realities of this upstart freight yard were fully known. The Chinese driers were replaced with a large fruit packing plant owned by W.H. Ewell with evidence that it used the Southern Pacific track behind the house. Opposite the Pajaro Valley tracks to the west, the Watsonville Ice & Cold Storage Company maintained its very larger cold storage structure, although it is not clear precisely which street catered to its non-rail needs. On the other side of Ewell's packing house, Corralitos Fruit Growers Inc. erected a massive packing house with a platform at back. And then to the east heading toward Walker Street, four more packing houses were built with rear-railroad access owned by Casserly Fruit Company, P.M. Resetar, Franich Bros., and L.C. Bachan. Across the spur tracks just before Walker Street, Hihn-Hammond kept a small freight storage building connected to its local freight office. Further down the main spur across Kearney Street Ext, Garcia & Maggini Company operated an expansive fruit packing and drying plant, with adjacent storage shed, all of which had rail access via the former Western Beet spur behind them. At the very end of the spur, along Ford Street to the north, Crown Fruit & Extract Company operated a cannery, fruit packing house, and pitting room that straddled the spur track all the way to its terminus.

Bachan Fruit Company advertisement, 1920s. (Smithsonian)

An undated map from the late 1930s or 1940s suggests that the freight yard was not significantly changed from the 1920s. The packing houses, beginning from the western end, included the Dong Packing Company, the California Fruit Evaporation Company, Ivancovich & Lucich Packing Company, and the Lettunich Bros. Packing Company. Thus none of the owners from twenty years earlier appeared on the spur any more. Around the former Beet spur, none of the packing houses were listed but the track still terminated at the renamed Crown Cordial & Extract Company.

Due to the scarcity of records available to this author, the next layout of the track yard is from 1973 and shows a greatly reduced freight presence along Kearney Ext, although the trackage has expanded significantly. Along the street, only two patrons remained: Modesko Cold Storage and John Inglis's cold storage. At the western end of the freight zone, Martinelli's kept a warehouse beside West Coast Farms, although whether either of these were directly accessible from Kearney Ext is not presently known. Across Kearney Ext to the north, only the Watsonville Canning Company remained as a formal freight stop.

M.N. Lettunich & Son packing label, c. 1920s. (ebay)

A massive reduction in trackage around 2003 had little impact on the already much-reduced freight area along Kearney Ext. In 1998, only Watsonville Canning Company still maintained a presence along the spur and it remained a patron even after 2003. Today, Terminal Freezers is the only facility along this still-connected technically functional spur that could use the track. The parallel spur that runs behind Auto Care Towing is largely buried. The spur has also been truncated down so it no longer reaches to the Del Mar Seafoods warehouse, which was once the Crown Cordial factory. The other spur that once paralleled the mainline behind the fruit packing plants on the south side of Kearney Ext. has long been removed and the businesses there no have freight access via platforms out back, as had been the case into the 1950s, if not later. It seems unlikely in the coming years that service will return along the spur even with recent developments.

Official Railroad Information:
All of the details above from after 1920 are from Southern Pacific and Union Pacific Railroad SPINS zoning maps of the Watsonville Jct. freight area. These maps note specifically what freight customers could use which sidings and spurs at the time the maps were made.

Geo-Coordinates & Access Rights:
36.908˚N, 121.764˚W

Kearney Street Extension is a public road and can be explored freely. The spur runs along Walker Street from between Watsonville Depot and Kearney Ext, at which point it crosses Kearney and cuts between two large warehouses. This track is on private land and trespassing is not permitted, although one may look down to nearly the end-of-track. All of the businesses on the south side of Kearney Ext were once packing houses and many on the north side were as well, so walking down this street provides an adequate glimpse of what the fruit packing industry looked like around 1920.

Citations & Credits:

• Sanborn Insurance Company maps, 1908-1920. UC Santa Cruz Digital Collections.
• Southern Pacific Railroad, SPINS. "Watsonville Jct. Zone 4: Sheet I". 1973. California State Railroad Museum.
• Union Pacific Railroad, SPINS. 1998, 2003. George Pepper collection.

Walker Street Patrons

When the Santa Cruz Railroad was first constructed through Watsonville in early 1874, it passed over the Pajaro River and then ran directly down the already-established Walker Street, much as it still does today. At the western corner of the junction of Walker and Beach Road, they erected their first freight and passenger depot. The tracks continued a short distance down Walker before turning due west into the Western Beet Sugar Company refinery, owned by Claus Spreckels. For the first two decades, no other railroad patron along Walker Street used the railroad formally for transport and only a single track ran down the road. Around 1890, the Railroad Hotel sprang up directly across Beach Road from the depot. The small hostelry expanded over the years, spreading somewhat down Walker Street alongside the tracks, which skirted the edge of the hotel grounds. A second hotel, the Railroad Exchange Hotel, sprang up around 1900 directly across from the new depot (where the current station sits today), between Beach Road and 4th Street. Like its rival to the south, it catered specifically to railroad passengers arriving at or departing from the Southern Pacific depot.

Railroad Exchange Hotel across from the depot, 1931. (Adi Zehner)

The first freight passengers along Walker Road appeared between 1st (todays Riverside Drive) and 2nd Streets at the end of the 1890s. White & de Hart Company owned a box-making factory that undoubtedly provided storage containers for the surrounding fruit packing plants. Although it seems likely that the factory used the railroad tracks, the Sanborn Fire Insurance maps for this time do not show any facilities alongside the road except a sawdust shed. A feed mill also owned by White & De Hart was located on the corner of Walker and 2nd to the north, also located directly alongside the tracks and also unclear whether the facility used the adjacent route. In 1908, a south-bound spur was constructed that cut slightly into the feed mill before terminating between the box factory and storage shed. It seems likely that this spur existed from an earlier date considering the specific arrangement of the structures. The storage shed was taken over around 1907 by the California Spray Chemical Company, which manufactured pest- and herbicides for use in farming. Two chemical tanks were installed beside the shed with four acid towers nearby. The railroad tracks appear to have been removed by 1911 when the spray chemical company departed, suggesting the company was the reason for the spur to begin with. In the mid-1910s, the entire block was resurrected as a new freight area with two spurs installed to cater primarily to the Pajaro Valley Cold Storage Company. Numerous structures were erected for fruit packing and drying and refrigeration. At the southern end of the block, the California Pine Box Distributors built a small warehouse to store its boxes.

San Monte Fruit Company company photo, c. 1905. (Adi  Zehner)

Just to the south opposite 1st Street, in 1903, the San Monte Fruit Company erected a truly massive packing house, vinegar factory, and cannery just south of 1st Street. As with its neighbours, a spur track ran, this time northbound, directly beside all three structures, allowing it to cater to all of the company's products. A continuous platform ran beside the tracks between all three structures. In the 1910s, San Monte downsized and its two southern warehouses were taken over by Jones Bros. Company, which ran a vinegar factory and used the warehouse for filtering and shipping, and the Pajaro Packing Company, which ran a cannery in the warehouse.

Simpson & Hack fruit packing plant with a boxcar parked beside it, c. 1905. (Adi Zehner)

Patrons along Walker Street between Beach Road
and 2nd Street, 1920 (UCSC Digital Collections)

By 1904, the number of fruit packing warehouses along Walker Street exploded. Between 2nd and Beach Road, Charles Ford Company set up a fruit packing plant and warehouse alongside the road with additional facilities that stretched over four parcels and to Locust Street behind it. By 1908, a spur track ran directly beside this warehouse with a platform built to help in loading products. Further south along the road, Simpson & Hack maintained a relatively large fruit packing structure from 1903, although it had no other facilities on the site. In 1908, a long south-bound spur was built to the renamed Frank Simpson Fruit Company fruit packing plant. This was taken over by an unnamed Japanese fruit packing company around 1910. Before 1920, all of the former patrons in this area changed. The Ford company was taken over by Rilovich & Sresovich Company and Resetar Bros., which both operated fruit packing and drying facilities in the former Ford structures. To the south, Copriviza & Gera built a new fruit packing plant, while north of the Ford property, the Zar Brothers, M.L. Kalich & Company, and Loma Fruit Company all erected warehouses beside two northern-oriented spurs.

Alaga Bros. packing house beside Walker Street, c. 1910s. (Adi Zehner)

Across the street, two businesses popped up in the 1920s along two spurs. South of Beach Road and north of Werner Street (Martin Alley), Alaga Bros. built a large fruit packing facility across three parcels. This structure burned down in 1927. Further south, just north of 2nd Street, the United Apple Growers' cooperative had another warehouse built.

Ortho California Spray Chemical Company plant beside the railroad track, c. 1910. (Adi Zehner)

To the south, on the southern side of 1st Street, G.A. Moorehead built his own fruit-packing plant alongside the same spur. That spur was shortened in the 1910s and a new spur was installed that catered to Moorehead's former structure, owned by Martin Brothers in 1920, as well as another facility which had sprung up around 1910: the Ortho California Spray Chemical Company. This factory was founded by Charles Silliman, and apple grower, in order to create a pesticide to kill the coddling moth. The company was sold in 1931 to the Standard Oil Company. In the late 1910s, the facility had expanded greatly over its parcel with a warehouse installed immediately beside the spur. To the north along yet another spur, the B. Pista Company built its own series of fruit packing houses.

Southern Walker Street just before
the Pajaro River, 1908.
(UCSC Digital Collections

Right at the edge of the Pajaro River, heading south, the first of these Walker Street spurs was installed, around 1903, oriented southbound on the west side of the tracks, to cater to the Big River Company power plant, which was an oil-fueled facility which powered some local businesses. The reason for the spur was probably because a long embankment running from the railroad bridge made use of the main track for freight impossible here. In around 1906, the company became the Big Creek Power Company. Just across the street, the Watsonville Light & Power Company kept a gas plant, which powered the street lamps in the city, among other things. It, too, likely used the tracks for the import of kerosene or whichever gas they stored on site. By 1920, both of these structures were owned by the Coast Counties Light & Power Company. Slightly to the north, on the west side of the tracks, the Quong Sung Lung Company built a fruit evaporator around 1908. An independent spur was erected beside the factory by 1920, although it seems to have lost its name, though the maps do note it was operated by Chinese.

Between 1911 and 1920, a massive extension spur extended down Walker Street, across Kearney, and to places never before reached by the railroad. At the northern terminus of the spur, on the west side of Walker Street, the railroad reached an unnamed fruit packing company owned by Chinese. The property stretched down Ford Street with housing for workers out back. The primary spur, which ran down the eastern side of Walker Street, terminated at the Stolich Bros. fruit packing warehouse. Just south of it, opposite 5th Street, the tracks also ran beside L.F. Lettis's fruit packing house.

SPINS map from 1973 for the Walker Street and Beach Road (Wall Street) spurs. (George Pepper)

Unfortunately, information regarding these spurs and businesses between 1920 and 1973 is not available to this historian, but a Southern Pacific SPINS map from 1973 does give a snapshot of what changed along Walker Street in the intervening years. Firstly, all of the spurs south of 1st Street were spiked by that year, although the tracks remained owned by G.P Martin, J.M. Bulaich, H.J. Heinz, and Speas. Secondly, the triple track that ran down the road in the 1920s appears to have been reduced to a single track at some point. The track that ran on the east side between 1st and 2nd Streets was owned by the Pajaro Valley Cold Storage Company, which had been first opened on the site in the 1910s. Continuing north along the east side, between 2nd and Beach Streets, the Mann-Vallentine Cold Storage company and a Neilson warehouse occupied the block. Opposite these, three separate spurs catered to Gallo Wine, Scurich Cold Storage, and Buchwald Cold Storage. Continuing down Walker Street passed the depot, two very short spurs catered to Lease Plumbing and George Barsi, while the end-of-track terminated at a place where it could cater to Berman Steel, Sambrailo Paper, and Bachan Fruit Company. By 1998, only Americold Corp and New West Foods still had functioning spurs along lower Walker Road, and Berman Steel and Wats Canning Company along the upper portion. Although many of these companies likely never used the spurs that they had access to, one can determine immediately that Walker Street was, or at least had been recently, a major freight shipping center in Santa Cruz County.

Official Railroad Information:
Considering the entire Walker Street track was a private freight area, only Southern Pacific zoning maps such as the SPINS used above from 1973 document official railroad information for the region. Timetables and agency books record nothing of this except for the depot. Another SPINS from 1998, two years after the Union Pacific takeover of the line, helps clarify the situation at the end of the millennium.

Geo Coordinates & Access Rights:
From 36.903˚N, 121.755˚W to 36.911˚N, 121.767˚W

Although all of the properties today remain private businesses, closed to the public, the tracks themselves are quite visible across Walker Street. Virtually all of the spurs present in 1973 remain in place, some paved over but many partially visible. The mainline track still runs directly down the middle of the road and is occasionally used by the Santa Cruz & Monterey Bay Railway. All of the spurs along the street are now spiked and their junctions removed, so there is little chance any will be reactivated again. However, many of the original 1910s warehouses and structures remain in place along the road, giving a further snapshot of what the freight district probably looked like back in the 1920s.

Citations & Credits:

• Sanborn Fire Insurance Company maps, 1888 – 1920. UC Santa Cruz Digital Collections.
• Southern Pacific Company, SPINS "Watsonville Jct." 1973. George Pepper collection.
• Zehner, Adi. "Remembering Watsonville..." Group Facebook photos and commentaries.