stevea (2022-07-07 19:07:02+00:00): While the traffic that happens on Santa Cruz Branch IS "occasional service," it isn't (necessarily) always for freight.  Though, SCBTRR ("Big Trees," who run the tourist train between Roaring Camp and the Boardwalk "Tram Hump" halt) DO need the branch from the Davenport Junction Wye easterly to Watsonville to gain access to the rest of national rail (they have trackage rights from SCCRTC, where Progressive / Saint Paul Pacific dispatches them from Watsonville Junction).

Sometimes, because SCCRTC is trying to keep alive the tracks as money is hard to find to rehabilitate them to a higher speed Class (I think all tracks are Class I now, with capital improvements intended to upgrade to Class 2), they will run "demonstration trains."  Honestly, it seems RTC does the "bare legal minimum" to run trains here so that the line can't be said to be abandoned, keeping it "barely legal" as a "running, operating railroad."

There are legal wranglings between RTC  (owner) and SPP (operator), but SPP is essentially "hamstrung" to be the operator for the remainder of their ten-year-long operating contract (I believe from 2019 to 2029), so there are still seven more years for RTC to find funding and/or another operator.  It's very crafty how RTC has "kept alive" the status of the Branch as "not abandoned."  (Totally a "shoestring" budget and with some aggressive legal underpinnings, but so far, so good).

There HAVE been developments, such as (relatively minor) repairs to some actual rail and at least one or two trestles, but this is seriously expensive and RTC must carefully bide its time and budget.  So there might be weeds, tree branches and other "blockages" (physically) to this rail, but it is the public's intention (especially after the 2-to-1 defeat of a "trail only, no passenger rail service" initiative on the June ballot by rich landowners along the Branch who have a NIMBY attitude towards passenger rail, and actually hinder the hike/bike Trail development, while pretending they are all for it).

So, it is "barely" active rail.  It's about as as close to "disused" as you can be with actually being disused; I can see how it would be easy to conclude that, and the news shifts rapidly on this:  one week it's "we're gonna have battery-operated TIG/M passenger ultra-light rail here!" the next week it's "um, it'll cost TENS of millions to repair that trestle, and we haven't those funds in RTC's budget."

Back and forth it goes, but RTC valiantly "keeps it alive."

I do believe that from the Davenport Junction Wye (Santa Cruz Depot area) out to Davenport, especially because the "Cement Plant" has closed, THOSE tracks really might remain "disused."  However, I have heard rumors (haven't seem them though) that there are "speeders" on that Davenport section (near Laguna Beach, really).  "Speeders" are people who place their own self-propelled cars onto the tracks (usually quite illegally) and "ride the rails" (then quickly remove their equipment before SPP's "bulls" catch them).

In fact, SPP's main legal complaint is that there is all sorts of illegal activity happening on the tracks throughout the county (homeless encampments, drug dealing, gang activity, even "gun running" where SPP security personnel have been threatened at gunpoint for trying to trespass people from "their" property).  It's a mess.

But "just barely enough to keep it legal," traffic runs.  At least between Watsonville (Junction) and at least Santa Cruz (well, Maple Street, where the Big Trees ownership change happens).

Tell you what, I'll "fix" this, making the Davenport Junction Wye-to-Davenport segments truly railway=disused.  I think that's most accurate "right now."  And thank you for your updates; mine and several others (e.g. UrbanUnPlanner) are trying to keep this line properly updated in OSM, but it is a serious challenge:  lots of very determined parties are deeply entrenched at making their truth what's actually happening on the ground, sometimes it is, sometimes it isn't.

Oh, SPP might still be "storing" tanker cars — miles and miles of them — full of toxic-who-knows-what between Watsonville and Rio Del Mar (hidden among the sloughs near the Watsonville Dump / Landfill).  It goes around and around and around as to what REALLY goes on "on" this line.  I think because of the environmental sensitivity of the salamander refuges out there, somebody got SPP to knock that off, but I'm not sure, they did assert "as operator on this rail line, we do have the legal right to store cars on 'our' tracks."

I'll check the Seabright wig-wag next time I'm near there; last time I ate at Betty Burger there, I think I saw it and also thought "yeah, how old school."  There ARE old-school wig-wags along Chestnut Street in Downtown (residential) Santa Cruz:  those have got to be close to a century old and they still work (as of a few years ago), you can see those work with the tourist trains, but not at Seabright, as Big Trees doesn't go that far with the tourists.

Sorry for the length; this is a busy "thing."