Passenger Trains > The (Really Really) Short Lines of Santa Barbara

I went walking on the beach today to have a look at a funicular railway I remembered seeing as a kid.  Along the way I was surprised to find two others.  All are on the ocean bluffs of the Hope Ranch section of Santa Barbara.
Photos 1&2 and 3&4 are the two railways I stumbled across.  I know nothing about them and both look unusable.
Photos 5&6 are of the one I came to see.  I was built in 1930 by Otis Elevator for the Peter Cooper Bryce family.  I know it was operational into the 70's.  It was recently given historic protection, so it should be around for a while yet.
SR

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I remember seeing a few from Cabin/mansions to boat docks on Lake Arrowhead.

That's a first.  Interesting.   Lots of dinero there, so it makes sense.

Back in the 60s, there was a story about a private incline railway in the Malibu or Pacific Palisades area that went to an illicit gambling den in a bluff-top mansion.  This was when the original Angels Flight railway was running in downtown LA, so I nicknamed this line "Devil's Flight".  It made its hill climbing runs loaded with bettors for some time.  The local law enforcement agency had heard rumors of this operation, but it wasn't until some player who thought he had been cheated told the cops where the railway was, and more important, the password to use on the intercom from the roadway to the house, that a raid was staged and the facility shut down.

Speaking of Short Lines of Santa Barbara, does anyone have any info, photos or recollections of the following:

For many, many years the late SEYMOUR JOHNSON owned and operated a huge Live Steam miniature railroad complex in the Montecito hills. His club was the Goleta Valley Live Steamers (GVLS)... He operated both 1 1/2" scale, 7 1/2" gauge rolling stock and locomotives as well as much larger 3" scale, 15" gauge rolling stock and locomotives.

Yes, I was invited out to the GVLS a few times in the late 70's. I have lots of photos (slides) and will eventually scan them and run them in the WABAC series I'm doing on the history page, but I'm plowing through my 80's B&W's first.
I'll get there.
SR

I was a member in the late 1980s and served as trainmaster during a couple of annual meets

Posted from Android

Marty Harrison
Knob Noster, MO

Seymour's place in Hope Ranch was great. The turntable out by the road and a tunnel portal going under the hill full of lemon trees. The rest, I don't remember much of. I watched him build the RR up on the hill, north east of Summerland in the mid 60s and I took my little electric down to a meet in the late 70s or mid 80s.

As far as the "Tracks" down to the beach, there were quite a few in Hope Ranch. Usually we would have to go and visit Mrs Brice, a friend of my grandmothers on Christmas day. She had huge turtles you could ride on but I discovered the cog track to the beach. and rode it up & down. Much better than a turtle.

Nudge


 

Cool stuff, had no idea these things were there.

Posted from Android

These are inclined railways for sure, but not funiculars. Funiculars have two cars connected together by a cable, with one car counterbalancing the other. Also, mid-slope, there is often a kind of passing track.

Ray