Railroad: Southern Pacific's Pajaro Branch

Santa Cruz County had much to be thankful for on Thanksgiving Day, November 30, 1871. Following years of debate, investment, and disappointment, the county was finally connected to the rest of the United States via rail. On November 27, the Southern Pacific Railroad completed the Pajaro Branch—a 17.2-mile standard-gauge line from Gilroy to a tiny village across the Pajaro River from Watsonville. While not technically within the county, the station at Pajaro was eagerly embraced by the residents of Watsonville and beyond. All life within the Pajaro Valley came to revolve around the railroad and its many benefits. Farmers and ranchers abandoned landings and ports in favor of the station. Lumber companies stopped hauling laden wagons through the mountains or to the coast, opting instead for the ease of a flatcar. And travelers, tired of long trips over dusty roads in cramped stagecoaches, embraced the efficient wonder of a passenger coach. As the track continued south to Castroville and Salinas, the branch line became the mainline and eventually the Coast Division of a grand transcontinental railroad that linked San Francisco to Los Angeles and destinations in the East.

Southern Pacific No. 2534 approaching Watsonville Junction, circa 1930s. [Courtesy Yesteryear Depot – colorized using MyHeritage]

The extension of the San Francisco & San Jose Railroad from San Jose to Gilroy via its subsidiary, the Santa Clara & Pajaro Valley Railroad, was completed two years earlier, on April 8, 1869. The idea of this new terminal motivated the hearts and minds of Santa Cruz County residents, prompting them to incorporate their own railroad in June 1867to complete the connection to Watsonville: the California Coast Railroad. At the time, this seemed like a prudent course of action since the planned Southern Pacific Railroad, which the Gilroy line would form a part, intended to continue south through San Juan Bautista and then over the mountains into the San Joaquín Valley. County residents felt that, to ensure a railroad would reach the Pajaro Valley, local action was necessary, if only to entice Southern Pacific to turn west. Fortunately for local pocketbooks, Southern Pacific showed its hand in January 1870 when it incorporated the subsidiary California Southern Railroad to build a railroad between Gilroy and Salinas. The only question remaining was: when would construction begin?

Official survey map for the Southern Pacific Railroad south of San José, later incorporated as the Santa Clara & Pajaro Valley Railroad, surveyed by T. J. Arnold and drawn by G. F. Allardy, 1868. [Courtesy Sourisseau Academy for State and Local History, San José State University]

Not immediately, as it became clear. On October 12, 1870, Southern Pacific reincorporated, absorbing the San Francisco & San Jose, Santa Clara & Pajaro Valley, and California Southern Railroads in the process. The company was now under the direct control of the Central Pacific Railroad’s Big Four: Leland Stanford, Collis Huntington, Mark Hopkins, and Charles Crocker. This sudden change convinced locals that the railroad had changed its mind and would take a different route south. Frederick A. Hihn and others once again incorporated an alternative line in April 1871 with plans to connect Santa Cruz with San José, this time via a narrow-gauge route along Soquel Creek. A the same time, General William S. Rosecrans and E. N. Robinson began surveying for a narrow-gauge railroad that would run the entire length of the coast from San Francsico to Los Angeles, passing through Santa Cruz County on the way. Meanwhile, in June, Pajaro Valley residents began a subscription drive to convince Southern Pacific to build a branch line to Watsonville. Regardless of the motivating factor, on July 17 Southern Pacific held a ground-breaking ceremony at a point two miles south of Gilroy, thereby marking the start of construction of a branch line to Watsonville and Castroville. The railroad’s intention was to complete the 25-mile-long line within ninety days, but the route would not be so easily made.

Henry Miller's private farm at Nema on the line of the Southern Pacific, circa 1890. [Courtesy Gilroy Museum – colorized using MyHeritage]

For its first 3.8 miles—from its starting point at a place called Carnadero to a settlement at the junction of the Gilroy, San Juan, and Pajaro Valley roads called Sargent’s—Southern Pacific encountered few obstacles. Most of the area was relatively flat ranchland owned by Miller & Lux and James P. Sargent, with only Uvas Creek and Tar Creek requiring short bridges. Beyond Sargent, the right-of-way required its first cut through a short hill, followed by further cuts as it began winding its way for 1.9 miles through a narrow valley created by the northern extent of the Pajaro River. More small bridges and culverts were needed here, though the gently sloping eastern edge of the Santa Cruz Mountains made the task relatively routine. At the southern end of the valley, the track turned decisively west toward the Monterey Bay, interrupted by the 4.8-mile-long problem of Pajaro Gap.

Sargent's Station on the Southern Pacific, circa 1885. [Courtesy Gilroy Museum – colorized using MyHeritage]

The northern side of the gap was owned primarily by Sargent and Nathaniel Chittenden, and their property line on Pescadero Creek marked the southern boundary between Santa Cruz and Santa Clara Counties. The terrain remained hilly, with Sargent Creek and Pescadero Creek both requiring more substantial bridges, though nothing remarkable. West of Pescadero Creek, the right-of-way followed a narrow shelf cut out of the hillside for a short distance before the route opened into a small basin occupied by Chittenden’s ranch. Small bridges and culverts allowed the railroad to reach the other side of the basin with little difficulty. However, deciding how to proceed through the narrowest part of the gap forced Southern Pacific to make its biggest and most consequential decision: whether or not to cross the Pajaro River in the gap.

The original bridge over the Pajaro River, 1910. [Courtesy McCarthy Collection, Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley – colorized using MyHeritage]

Nearly all surveying efforts prior to 1871 had focused on a route that would take a railroad through Pajaro Gap along the north side of the Pajaro River, thereby allowing it to enter Watsonville directly. In fact, Railroad School east of Watsonville was named after the fact that it was located on the right-of-way of a proposed railroad. On paper, however, this route was not ideal. The rugged farming road that would later become State Route 129 barely existed at this time and the space between the southern slopes of the Santa Cruz Mountains and the river was perilously narrow along two sections. Nonetheless, the people of Watsonville expected the railroad to connect to Watsonville directly before crossing the river and they even attempted to bribe the railroad to do so in case it was wavering in its commitment. Unperturbed, Southern Pacific decided against the northern route and went south instead, forever depriving Watsonville its place on the main trunk of the Coast Division.

The Pajaro River bridge following the April 18, 1906 earthquake, with temporary support trestlework on its southern end and a collapse pier. [Courtesy Charles Derleth Collection, Bancroft Library, UC Berkeley – colorized using MyHeritage]

The bridge required to cross the Pajaro River west of Chittenden was substantial. At 432 feet in length and 50 feet high, it included a short trestle approach from the east and four 87.5-foot-long Howe truss sections chained together atop concrete piers. It was likely the most monumental structure erected in Santa Cruz and Monterey Counties at the time. The bridge would latter suffer greatly from its placement near the San Andreas Fault when the 1906 San Francisco Earthquake rocked it off its foundations by more than three feet. Crews quickly secured the bridge with a hastily-erected trestle but other damage along the route meant the line was out of service for a week after the temblor. It seems likely that further repairs were made over the next few months to ensure the piers remained stable and the abutments on either side of the river were secure.

A butcher's wagon going up Carpentaria Road in Aromas, circa 1900. [Courtesy Albert and Alzora Snyder Collection, Monterey County Free Libraries – colorized using MyHeritage]

After a final turn around the granite-rich hill that would one day host the Graniterock quarry, the Pajaro Branch made its entry into the Pajaro Valley, or rather a smaller vale through which the Pajaro River meanders between steep banks before curving sharply north upon encountering an insurmountable sandstone wall. The railroad passed through here for 1.5 miles, yet the wall could not be bypassed in the manner of the river, and this proved to be quite the obstacle for Southern Pacific. In their eagerness to avoid the steep hillsides north of the river, surveyors had misreported the severity of the obstacle. At 0.4 miles thick, including necessary approaches, this sandstone leg of the Gabilan Range could only be overcome with a cut or tunnel. While the railroad crews attempted the former, the results were mixed and a sort of tunnel was eventually settled upon out of obligation more than desire. By the 1890s, crews were able to widen and reinforce the cut sufficiently to avoid the need for a tunnel, but even today piles of sand collect on the rails whenever a storm strikes or there is inactivity on the line for more than a few days.

The Sand Cut between Aromas and Vega on the Southern Pacific line, 1909. [From the Neil Vodden Collection, courtesy Jack Hanson – colorized using MyHeritage]

The final 4.8 miles between the west side of the Sand Cut and the community of Pajaro imposed no obstacles—not even a creek or gully—to Southern Pacific crews. In fact, the track only turned once along this stretch to gently wrap around another foot of the Gabilans. At Pajaro, the right-of-way initially ran until stopping just short of Salinas Road, roughly paralleling today’s Railroad Avenue. However, June 1872, construction crews began building a new track south along the east side of Salinas Road to extend the line to Castroville, Salinas, and ultimately Los Angeles. Despite initial annoyance that the route bypassed them, the people of Watsonville celebrated the arrival of the railroad to Pajaro since it gave them a direct connection to San Francisco and beyond. Further celebrations were in order in May 1876, when the Santa Cruz Railroad was completed to Pajaro. In 1882, this line was taken over by Southern Pacific and standard-gauged shortly afterwards, unifying the Pajaro yard and allowing the fluid flow of traffic from Santa Cruz and Watsonville to the Southern Pacific mainline.

The Thompson Road grade crossing near Vega, September 1, 1927. [Courtesy California State Archives – colorized using MyHeritage]

A total of twelve registered stations popped up along this 17.2 miles of track between 1871 and 1949. Over half existed from the beginning, including Carnadero, Nema, Miller’s, Sargent’s, Chittenden’s, Sand Cut, Vega, and Pajaro. All of these catered to surrounding rural communities, with three named after landowners and two after Mexican ranchos. Later, four additional stations were added: Corporal, Betabel, Newria, and Logan. These primarily reflected new industries that arose in the years after the railroad’s construction. Three stations later experienced name changes, as well, with Sand Cut becoming Aromas, Vega becoming Eaton, and Pajaro becoming Watsonville Junction. All of the stations in this section are now formally abandoned except for Carnadero, Sargent, Logan, and Watsonville Junction, the latter two of which remain active freight yards, though no passenger service currently caters to either location.

Marvin Maynard outside Tres Pinos depot, July 31, 1949. Photo by Wilbur C. Whittaker. [Courtesy Jim Vail – colorized using MyHeritage]

Although the Watsonville Branch began life as an offshoot of the Southern Pacific Railroad, it briefly became the mainline. The completion of the track to Tres Pinos south of Hollister in August 1873 marked an unexpected end to the railroad’s original plans. That same month, construction of the line south from Pajaro reached Soledad and Southern Pacific decided that a mainline passing through the Salinas Valley was much more profitable and sustainable than one continuing up the nearly uninhabited San Benito Valley. As a result, the Tres Pinos line became a branch and the Soledad line, passing through Pajaro, became the new mainline. This new status only lasted two years. Around June 1875, another route through the San Joaquin Valley—one that would eventually become the second transcontinental railroad—stole the title of mainline from its coastal kin. The former mainline became the trunk of the Northern Division and, on July 1, 1892, the Coast Division.

A Coast Daylight crossing the new Pajaro River Bridge, circa 1941. [Courtesy Gilroy Museum – colorized using MyHeritage]

Unlike most of the other railroads in and around Santa Cruz County, this 17.2-mile section of the Southern Pacific was built at the standard gauge from the start, so it never underwent the kind of reengineering the other lines endured. In fact, most of its changes were relatively minor and cosmetic. Automatic Block Signaling (ABS) was adopted across the entire section sometime before 1907, allowing traffic to be controlled from a centralized location. Around the same time, nearly all bridges were converted into fills with culverts, or extremely short steel-reinforced concrete spans. An exception to this is the bridge over Pescadero Creek, which remains a traditional timber trestle. A more notable exception is the long bridge over the Pajaro River. Following its initial construction in 1871 and its substantial repair in 1906 after the earthquake, the bridge remained in place for another 35 years. In August 1940, Southern Pacific finally decided that a new bridge was needed. Work began in November with an entirely new structure erected directly to the west of the old bridge. It was composed of a single 450-foot-long prefabricated American Bridge Company open-deck plate girder span mounted atop two concrete piers. The bridge was completed in late March 1941 and shortly afterwards the older bridge was removed, though its piers still stand in the river today beside its still-functioning replacement.

Southern Pacific track and siding through Chittenden, circa 1921. [Courtesy University of California, Santa Cruz – colorized using MyHeritage]

There was only one other substantial change to the line. In the late 1920s, Southern Pacific was hoping to double-track the entire section from Gilroy to Watsonville Junction, with plans to also extend the long siding in Chittenden to 100 carlengths. Concrete abutments capable of supporting three bridges were erected on either side of State Route 129 in Chittenden for this purpose. Only two bridges were actually installed, both 80-foot-long open deck plate girder spans, and only the southern bridge was ever put into service, though both remain in place today. Double tracking never actually reached Chittenden. The section from Watsonville Junction to Logan was finished in October 1929, while the section from Gilroy to Sargent was finished on December 26, 1930, but between these points, the right-of-way remains a single track. The cost of installing a second track through Pajaro Gap and especially across the Pajaro River in the midst of the Great Depression ended any hope for this project’s completion.

A Del Monte—Southern Pacific No. 2454—leaving Watsonville Junction, circa 1930s. Photo by Fred Stoes. [Courtesy Yesteryear Depot – colorized using MyHeritage]

Passenger service along the Coast Division mainline suffered greatly from the increased use of private automobiles in the first half of the twentieth century. By 1951, most regular passenger trains had stopped calling at stations between Gilroy and Watsonville Junction. Further consolidations led to Southern Pacific merging two neighboring divisions into the Western–Coast Division on April 26, 1964, though this became the Western Division six months later. The next year in May, the Coast Mail made its last run, followed in May 1971 by the Coast Daylight and Del Monte, when Amtrak took over national passenger services. Changes across its lines convinced the railroad to rebrand in 1969 as the Southern Pacific Transportation Company. Further reductions in service and contractions across the industry led the Western Division to absorb other adjacent divisions in April 1987 to become the Western Region. This remained the name for the section at the time the Union Pacific Railroad took full control of Southern Pacific’s operations in 1998. Under its new owners, the section became the Salinas Subdivision, part of Union Pacific’s Roseville Service Unit.

An Amtrak Coast Starlight passing through Corporal, December 1979. Photo by Drew Jacksich. [Courtesy Drew Jacksich and Flickr]

Freight service along the former Southern Pacific Coast Division has not ceased since the line first opened in 1871, and local freight industries at Logan, Watsonville Junction, and Watsonville suggest that it will remain active for the foreseeable future. In addition, larger freight movements passing along the line, though not stopping, are constant. Restoring passenger service to this section has been a more difficult goal that has faced endless setbacks since the 1970s. The Coast Starlight succeeded the Coast Daylight and the Starlight in 1971 and runs regularly between Seattle and Los Angeles along this section, but does not stop. However plans to extend Caltrain service south of Gilroy to Watsonville Junction, Castroville, and Salinas have not materialized. Only time will tell if full, regular commuter passenger service will resume along this section of railroad, but the trackage remains active and under the ownership of Union Pacific.

Citations & Credits:

• Bender, Henry E., Jr., “SP San Jose to Watsonville Junction” [SP70/73]. December 2017.
• California Coast Railroad Company, “Articles of Association." June 15, 1867. Courtesy California State Archives.
• Daggett, Stuart. Chapters on the History of the Southern Pacific. New York: Ronald Press Company, 1922.
• Hamman, Rick. California Central Coast Railways. Second edition. SSanta Cruz, CA: Otter B Books, 2002.
• Signor, John R. Southern Pacific’s Coast Line. Wilton, CA: Signature Press, 1994.
• Southern Pacific Railroad Company. Miscellaneous corporate documents. 1892–1996.
• Surface Transportation Board. Finance Docket No. 32760—Decision No. 44. August 6, 1996.
• Union Pacific Railroad Company. Roseville Service Unit—Salinas Subdivision Gilroy OGN/Phase 4/ Book 52. April 13, 1998.
• Various articles from The Daily Examiner, The Independent, The Pajaronian, The San Luis Obispo Tribune, Santa Cruz Evening News, and the Santa Cruz Sentinel.