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Roaring Camp Railroads are two heritage railways or tourist railroads in Felton, California. The Roaring Camp & Big Trees is a steam-powered narrow gauge (36") line using geared Shay and Heisler locomotives to pull passengers to the summit of Bear Mountain. The Santa Cruz, Big Trees & Pacific Railroad is the southernmost remaining portion of the old Southern Pacific line from the Bay Area to Santa Cruz by way of Los Gatos and Felton. While the trains to the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk traverse the same route established by the famous narrow-gauge South Pacific Coast, much of the line follows an original 1875 grade built by the Santa Cruz & Felton. The SC&F, one of the area's first railroads, was built to haul logs from the end of the Boulder Creek-Felton Flume to Santa Cruz harbor. Roaring Camp acquired the historic Felton-Santa Cruz line from the Southern Pacific in 1985 and returned it to operation. The railroad serves both tourist traffic on the seasonal beach trains as well as freight/mixed service to serve San Lorenzo Lumber Co, the line's only freight client, at Felton. While currently dormant, the line also continues two miles north of Roaring Camp, ending just past a point known as Olympia Station.
A young F. Norman Clark (1935-1985) arrived at what was then the Big Trees Ranch in 1957, bringing with him dreams to recreate a narrow-gauge logging railroad of the 1880s. After convincing a group of investors, Clark built and opened the first portion of the Roaring Camp & Big Trees in 1963. The first trains left from a restored 1880 Felton depot which, along with the neighboring freight shed, are still used today by Roaring Camp.
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