Roaring Camp Railroad, a beloved American frontier town tucked in the Santa Cruz Mountains, may soon be forced to close due to a change in rail service.
The camp is more than just a couple rusty old freight trains.
It's an entire "Old West" themed village, built up around the historic rail line that once brought lumber from the Santa Cruz Mountains to San Francisco during the Gold Rush. "I am a huge western person. I like to watch westerns on TV," said Paula Bassett, who came up from San Jose. "I get to come up here and kind of live like people did back in the Old West."
Tourists are finally returning to Roaring Camp, which almost got derailed by the pandemic, but now the camp is facing yet another existential threat.
"We have been through a lot. I keep saying 2020 has been a really long year," CEO Melani Clark told KCBS Radio.
The County Transportation Commission is considering changing the track that connects their beach train to the Santa Cruz Boardwalk from rail to trail. According to Clark, this would jeopardize the Roaring Camp Railroad's existence. "So what they're going to do, if they move forward with that, is they will strip the federal protection that we have, leaving us exposed in the future," she explained.
Greg Preston, commission executive director, argued the future could still be rail, just not heavy rail.
"Commuter route could be an option for people to move between Watsonville and Santa Cruz without using Highway 1," Preston said, adding that some in Santa Cruz want the old freight line to be turn into a pedestrian path.
"Biking and walking is the cleanest type of transportation," he explained. Despite the potential change, Preston stressed they still want Roaring Camp to serve the boardwalk.
The issue comes before the Transportation Commission on Thursday.
Loyal train passengers are hoping some sort of compromise will be hammered out, so the historic train can still reach the beach. "If we take away things like this, then it just almost becomes a myth," Bassett said.
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