Need Help

If there are any geological maps of the Ocean Shore Railway, or any sort of map that isn't the basic map showing the initial design of the railway, with the 23-mile gap please email:

Tintin.Huntington@gmail.com

My research has stalled due to school, and also the lack of resources to lead upon the railway.

Thanks

- The Vintage Comet

Information Needed

Does anybody know where on the Ocean Shore Railroad this picture was taken? I am almost confident that it is taken in the Northern Terminus of the line. If anybody can have a guess or know where this was taken, please leave a comment.

Montara to Miramar

After the Ocean Shore Railway left the Devils Slide, it would carry on through the [relatively] flat coastline that was the San Mateo Coast. Ocean Shore Engineers probably didn't have much of a struggle building through here, if the weather was alright and the funding was still secure. Where we left off, we were on the approach to Miramar, ending at an unknown creek where a trestle once stood. I have tried to find any images of the old trestle, but alas none have been procured. From the berm at Montara, it is very hard to trace the Ocean Shore Railroad since development in the thirties to sixties have basically covered the entire line. Please keep in mind that in the next few posts, this is just my rough judgement on where the railway must've gone, for I have no sufficient maps to actually cover this.

The red represents the Ocean Shore Railroad, from what I suspect it went.

The railway most likely would have gone in a straight line through the then empty town of Montara. There is one known photo of the station at Montara that I have discovered, and apparently, on one of the streets within the town, there is the word "MONTARA" encased in brick on the sidewalk, marking the location of the old station. I do not know if the station survives, but it most likely, if it did survive the abandonment of the railway, is a residential house. 

 

The picture most likely was taken in the 1910s.

The picture above seems to be from the days when the Ocean Shore Railroad was booming with tourism. From Montara, the railway probably would have followed the Cabrillo Highway, and had taken a curve along the ocean's edge. The Cabrillo Highway goes over a creek that divides the town of Montara, of course, I did not find any image of the trestle that must've once went over it, or if any berm was constructed over it. 

Of course, recent development has made it impossible to trace where the railway went. I am assuming the railway went through the small cut that is used by the Cabrillo Highway on the side of the small cliffs at Montara. From there, the railway must've gone straight to Miramar. Where the Half Moon Bay airport stands, must've been traces of a right of way before it was constructed, for it was likely the Ocean Shore Railroad would've cut straight through that area on its way to Miramar.  

I'm most likely wrong on where the railway went, but due to the lack of maps, it makes it entirely difficult to find where the railway went. The small town on the right is known as Princeton and was a planned location on the Ocean Shore Railroad. I do not know if there was a physical station at Princeton, but I understand that it was planned to be heavily remodelled in the eyes of the Ocean Shore Railroad. 

Apparently, some old members of El Granada claim that the town used to be filled with empty streets after the Ocean Shore Railroad went bankrupt, due to the railway having many real estate claims in the town. The railway, for a fact, followed what is now the Cabrillo Highway. A small yard was stationed at El Granada, the next following pictures depict El Granada in the days that the Ocean Shore Railroad was there. By far, this is the most amount of pictures of the Ocean Shore Railroad in a single town. 

IMAGE ONE: The station at El Granada. IMAGE TWO: The yard at Granada. 

El Granada seemed to be the hub of the railway in the Northern Terminus. A full yard and station were stationed there! In the screenshot from google maps above, I can only assume that it was the old railway yard, that was never redeveloped. Yet again, the railroad continues on. There is no map that documents the Ocean Shore Railroad at Miramar, and thus I cannot definitively give you an answer on where the railway went through Miramar. 

The railroad most likely went by the curve below or went from where the Cabrillo Highway is now. Miramar was also a very popular destination on the Ocean Shore Railroad, where many people once travelled to in the days of the tourism. This is unfortunately where I have to leave you guys all off now. I promise I'll post again this month!

Is this at Miramar or El Granada? 

CITATIONS:

Morrall, June. “Ocean Shore Railroad's ‘Yard’ at Granada.” Half Moon Bay Memories, 26 Dec. 2007, www.halfmoonbaymemories.com/2007/12/26/ocean-shore-railroads-yard-at-granada/.

Clinging To The Cliffs

The Ocean Shore Railroad, in order to gain access to the towns of El Granada, needed to conquer the steep cliffs of the Devils Slide. As shown in the previous post, the Ocean Shore Railroad had constructed the line through the Devils Slide, but still had to conquer the last few cliffs beside it. Leaving off from where we left off at the entrance from the Devils Slide Trail (formerly the Cabrillo Highway) pulling into the Tom Santos Tunnel Southern Portal entrance, where the Ocean Shore Railroad once curved to pull into the rest of the line. 

As shown in the screenshot above, it is clearly visible where the Ocean Shore Railroad used to go, but look at the size of those cuts along the berm! From there, the Ocean Shore Railroad then curved into the wide ocean canyon.

The Ocean Shore Railroad ROW then curves onto a small gravel road.

If you wish to drive this section, I highly discourage it but it is accessible via the Cabrillo Highway into the small gravel road. The Ocean Shore Railroad had to use various tight curves in order to gain access into the areas below Pacifica. In the very right, we can see the gravel road end and give way to an abandoned right of way, likely untouched since the 1930s after the rails were pulled up. 

The Black Line represents the Right Of Way, and the Red Line represents what once was the Trestle

The Ocean Shore Railroad then curved among a beam to the other side of the canyon, crossing the small watershed creek with a trestle. This trestle likely collapsed sometime in the 1930s or was removed in the 1920s. The infrastructure before removal provided as a bypass road from the Pedro Mountain Road in the days after the Ocean Shore Railroad. The railroad would then pass through a very noticeable cut, accessible by the local beach parking lot. 

In the picture above, observe how the railroad right of way is currently maintained as some sort of dirt path. The railroad from the left, would curve towards the straight line of the track (not the dirt road, mind from the other picture) and pass through a cut, before re-entering the other section of cliffs. Observe the Cabrillo Highway on the bottom left. 

This picture views how the Ocean Shore Railroad reached the ocean plains via the cliffs

If you wish to access this portion of the Right Of Way, it is accessible by the local beach as stated. In the picture above, the Cabrillo Highway uses much of the Ocean Shore Railroad's former right of way. The windiness of the track displays how much the Ocean Shore Railroad engineers had to accomplish, as well as carving out a substantial ledge on the edge of cliffs. 

The railway then had to pass through a series of tall cuts along the cliffside, before finally reaching the ocean plains edge. We will continue on for a short bit before ending for the week. The Cabrillo Highway utilized the former Ocean Shore Railroad right of way, due to the lack of any other road access to the area, besides the tight hairpin curve monstrosity that was the Pedro Mountain Road. 

The first glimpse of the coastal plains shows a bountiful agriculture industry, which was one of the reasons why the Ocean Shore Railroad first had financial success in the beginning. It was thought that the agriculture and passenger industry could sustain the Ocean Shore Railroad forever, but it was never accounted for the variable of funds from investors. The railroad follows the Cabrillo Highway until it curves, taking an abandoned berm lined only by a wooden fence. 

A close up on the abandoned berm reveals that yet another trestle crosses another watershed runoff creek. The tracks then go into the city of Montara, the site of a former Ocean Shore railway station. That will do it for today, I'll come back whenever I feel like it! 

When Tourism Reigned

The Ocean Shore Railroad in it's beginning was expecting a large influx of tourists, flocking from the cramped city of San Francisco to the sandy beaches of the San Mateo Coast. This dream, which was built upon developing real estate for these wealthy tourists is what cost the Ocean Shore Railroad it's life. In the beginning, the tourism was slow to start, but got to the point so much that the OSRR had no choice but to put tourists on flatbed cars with benches! These following pictures display a time when Tourism reigned on the Devil's Slide portion of the line.

The location is most likely somewhere after the Pedro Point Tunnel. This image, not sure how the photographer had gotten there, shows what can be presumed as an Ocean Shore Railroad commuter train along the Slide.

Approaching the Pedro Point Tunnel can reveal the relationship with Humans and the development of a railway along a constantly changing coast. Sure would be a wonder if this were still around.

Of course, tourism was so much from the wealthy people of San Francisco, that the Ocean Shore Railroad had to leave people on flatbed cars with benches!

The Devil's Slide caused more problems on its own than during construction. Landslides plagued the cliff, as by its name. It trapped many trains when it ran, yet one can only imagine being stuck on a cold train by a landslide, with the fear of it plummeting to your death.

The caption on the picture reads:

"This photo shows the nature of construction in the Devil's Slide area by the Ocean Shore's contractors. But, this is not a construction image. It is actually a photo of crews battling to free a train trapped by a landslide at this notorious slide area. The San Pedro Point tunnel portal is a dark spot on the far left mountain going out of the ocean."

Advertisements by the Ocean Shore Railroad ran rampant through newspapers, encouraging those who wanted to escape the bleak city life of San Francisco to ride the train down South. Of course, this barely even worked.

Possibly the most famous phrase of all Ocean Shore Railroad advertisements: "Reaches the Beaches!"

SOURCES:

I gather my images mostly from Oceanshorerailroad.org and Half Moon Bay Memories. Just to be clear, I do NOT own any of these. Sorry for the un-bibliographical phrases here, the website I usually use to make the websites and authors look biblical is down. 

The Treacherous & Infamous Devil's Slide

A monument to engineering, and a feat that was unsurpassable by any other railway in the Bay Area of California. It is the most charming aspect of the Ocean Shore Railroad, and possibly the most infamous. We know Devils Slide today as the treacherous stretch of road that the Cabrillo Highway went through, plagued by storms and landslides. Since the opening of the Tom Santos Tunnel, the former route of the Cabrillo Highway has been turned into a pedestrian path, designated as a rail-to-trail. Though it may seem steep for a railway to incline it, the Ocean Shore Railroad actually did not go above the Devils Slide, it clung to a ledge on it. Just like the ledge, we observed in San Francisco, the railway wrapped around the Devils Slide, via the Pedro Point Tunnel, and came out on Pacifica. The landslides were partially the reason that the Ocean Shore Railway was driven to bankruptcy.

The route of the Pedro Point Tunnel, transitioning from a noticeable right of way clinging to a ledge, to a simple flat line along the cliffs.

It was the entire plan of the Ocean Shore Railroad to connect San Francisco and Santa Cruz via the coast. It was not an easy task, and engineers knew that the Devils Slide would be the hardest portion of the line. When the line to El Granada was completed, engineers hailed it as a miracle. They claimed that the rest of the line was going to be a breeze building, but as Chris Hunter stated, "It was not the cast."

The Devils Slide portion of the railway was completed in 1907, after tirelessly using work gangs and steam shovels to carve out a berm to the side of the cliffs. The work was tiresome, especially when plagued with the 1906 earthquake, which effectively threw the railway equipment to the side. 

The work gangs, which were primarily Greek, carved out a ledge.

The railway used the Pedro Point Tunnel to access the Devils Slide. From here, on google maps, we can see the railway curve, as well as a ground displacement and rubble, from when the tunnel was blown up by federal agents in the 1930s. I will make a post up on that later. 

Above, we can observe the remains of the ledge, and the condition it is in. Since abandonment in the 1920s, it has been plagued from the constant pounding of ocean surf, and the changing formations of the cliffs. It is virtually impossible nowadays, to get to the ledge, and to revitalize it. 

A sideways look of the ledge reveals the chaotic condition it is in that the ledge is in. If only the workers of the time came back to see their engineering feat, a masterpiece, crumbling away.

Then, the line curves from the straight stretch on the Slide. In the photo shown above, the curve is relatively destroyed, from watershed creeks and landslides from previous years. When trains rolled across it, the view was spectacular. The below picture is a view from the Rockaway Beach curve, but the right of way of the Ocean Shore Railroad is still noticeable. This view greeted weary travellers and beach-goers, to a land of opportunity. Much of the towns of the San Mateo coast can be credited to the Ocean Shore Railroad's aggressive marketing campaign, in conjunction with Real Estate Companies that sought to sell flatlands, to ease the house congestion of San Francisco.

Only this view remains, as in our post of the Rockaway Beach section, using a very steel trail this ledge is accessible, cut away from the rest of the berms.

The railway then follows a certain, relatively, straight stretch of track. Travellers on the Ocean Shore Railroad could only look two ways, face a rocky cliff, or face the majestic bright blue Pacific Ocean. The railway used a variety of cuts to pass along the cliff, to make a cheaper option in building the line. Though it would cost them bankruptcy, it provided the railway with tourism for a couple of years. One can dream though, that if the railway made it to through the Roaring Twenties, that thousands of tourists could have flocked to areas like Linda Mar, and Tunitas Creek. If the railway had persevered through the Great Depression (just like much of the right of way and bridges), it would've provided agricultural transport, and if the railway had made it into World War Two and the Cruisin' Era, tourists and industry would flourish among the coast. 

Possibly the most famous picture from the Ocean Shore Railroad. This view can observe a passenger train along the slide.

Landslides like these plagued the Ocean Shore Railroad, just like it did to the Cabrillo Highway.

The railway then continued, probably curving along that big stump shown in the above screenshot. Most of the area nowadays has eroded away, but a faint line that resembles the ledge remains. The cuts are sort of visible, though may have become formed with landslides over time.

A close up to the line reveals the faint trace of the ledge, as well as multiple rocks jutting out from the once laborious tasks of cutting into the hillside.

Yet, as it continues, traces of the berm becomes more and fainter. At this point, it has disappeared from the constant erosion of the ocean shore. However, I believe that white line to the right of the image could be the ledge. I imagine that the Cabrillo Highway built atop that certain section of the line (as we do have knowledge that the sections of the Cabrillo Highway between the Tom Santos Tunnel and Half Moon Bay were indeed used by the Ocean Shore Railroad), leaving only a white rock trace of it. 

It can be imagined though, for the Cabrillo Highway descends into the area where the white line follows and the ledge. Technically, this portion of the line is the best-preserved, as the cuts still remain. In the right, we can see the large railway cut that was blasted by the engineers, later widened to accommodate the highway. I have visited this area myself, thanks to the transformation of the highway to a pedestrian walkway, and can reveal that the cuts are tall!

I can presume this is the approximate location. This image reveals the sheer size of the cuts, in comparison to the passing commuter train. 

An image, taken by me, reveals the size of the cuts. This is at the entrance to the trail, a little bit further from our current position.

The line then curves, via multiple cuts shown in the image, to where the Tom Santos Tunnel is now located. Originally, these were supposed to be a series of tunnels, which I presume would have been much safer, but the engineers decided to use the much cheaper version. The image that I took, above this screenshot, reveals the size of this. I have walked the entire trail (very tiresomely I must add), and can say that these huge! Unfortunately, I must leave you all here today readers. If you are wondering about my uploading times, I upload when I please and when I have the time. 

A little photo, to tell you what there is to expect in the next posts!

Wavecrest Ledge to Devils Slide

It is possibly the most enchanting aspect of the Ocean Shore Railroad, that was the line that curved around the precarious Devils Slide. Blasted from the rock, with the aid of work gangs and steam shovels it was possibly the hardest part in completing the railway. As it did to the Cabrillo Highway (before they built the tunnel), landslides plagued the line; often shutting it down for weeks on end. One can only imagine what it would be like traveling through there during a windy stormy day. This section will be covering the line from Wavecrest (Pacifica) all the way to Devils Slide, stopping at where the Pedro Point Tunnel once was.

The tracks curved from Wavecrest and climbed a [unknown] grade, with the help of the ledge. As you can see, parts of the ledge have collapsed, eliminating the only road into Tobin and Shelter Cove. Remains of the road can be found on the ledge itself. It should be known that if the ledge had not collapsed, the people of Pacifica may have found a new beach destination like they did in the fifties.

The collapse is much more visible now, after constant years of Ocean Shore pounding.

The line curves around the mountain again, around Tobin and Shelter Cove. The site of where the Tobin station was is marked by the strange concrete circle, with Shelter Cove's once-famous beach lying beside it. Since the road collapse, the only way to enter the cove was via a small footpath, bringing tourism to the area as well as the small resort that was there to dwindle. There is small evidence of the asphalt road that once carried cars to Shelter Cove, but now carry only people and the wildlife that live there. 

A closeup upon the cut that was at Tobin, reveals the former road and where the Tobin station once stood. The path at the bottom was once there, to lead the people of the parked cars down to the seaside resort that was at Shelter Cove.

It is from here that the line curves to follow the mountainside, with much evidence of the railway being shown. If only this was the case on the other side of these treacherous hills. Since the abandonment in the 1920s, the line has faced much erosion and collapse. Some long-living residents of Pacifica recall riding their bikes on the ledge during the thirties to the then uncollapsed tunnel.

The spot where the Pedro Point tunnel once was, curving around Mussel Rock is evident.

From there, the Ocean Shore Railway would continue on the ledge until the Pedro Point Tunnel, which provided curved access into the other side of Devils Slide. Many legends surrounded the tunnel, as will be the interest of the next post but possibly the most famous was that the tunnel was possibly (probably) used for alcohol boot-legging during the times of prohibition. After that, federal agents blew up both entrances to the tunnel. The curved indent at the top of the hill shows where the ground shifted after the tunnel was blown, but maybe there are still pieces of wood or just empty space in all that rock. Quite fascinating, so until the next post readers! 

The station at Tobin, date unknown. The station now serves a private residence.