Mystery Trains

I've been looking at my various "train related" slides, and decided to scan some, including today's mystery train from May, 1966. This miniature train looks typical of the kind of thing you could find at scores of amusement parks and zoos around the country, I don't even see any useful clues for the armchair detectives out there.

This boy has learned to "smile for the camera" well, the expression hardly looks strained at all! But I'd be smiling if I was about to ride a tiny train. A neighborhood appears to be at the top of the slope; it's driving me crazy not knowing where this was!

The boy is doing a pre-ride inspection to make sure that it is safe for all the other boys and girls. "I'm not sure this meets up with my standards, I will have to make a full report". In the distance, a Sinclair gas station. The buildings look older, possibly east coast or maybe midwest.

OK, when I first put today's blog post together, I had no clue about the beautiful locomotive pictured below. And then I did some sort of very basic blog search, something like, "tourist steam locomotives United States", and discovered that this is one of the Roaring Camp locos (at this website). Roaring Camp Railroads was the brainchild of Norman Clark, who came from a family of railroad builders and who dreamed of preserving both the spirit of early California and the state's stunning redwoods by constructing a park where logging would be off limits. The company, opened in 1963 in Santa Cruz County, operates two lines, both about a 75-minute drive south of San Francisco. The Santa Cruz Beach Train, which goes from Roaring Camp down to the Santa Cruz boardwalk, runs along the 1875 Santa Cruz & Felton route. The Redwood Forest Steam Train, meanwhile, runs along a wooded route with trestles. The 19th-century geared locomotives are better able to negotiate steep inclines than conventional steam trains.

Here it is as it looks today!