As California ponders a $10 billion investment in passenger rail lines, proponents are framing high-speed rail as the transportation mode of the future. While the idea of a statewide passenger rail is in sharp contrast to our current dependence on highways, it’s not far off from the rail system that was in place a century ago.

Around the turn of the century, Southern Pacific’s Coast Line connected San Francisco to Los Angeles, running right through the Central Coast. From the line’s stop in Castroville, passengers could board the Del Monte Limited train, which ran to Seaside, Fort Ord, Monterey and Pacific Grove.

In 1890, the Monterey and Pacific Grove Railway operated 10 horse cars, which carried passengers around the two cities. In 1903, the company electrified its tracks and motorized its horse cars. The railway connected to the Del Monte hotel, downtown Monterey and Pacific Grove’s Southern Pacific station.

After temporary residents employed for World War I returned home, ridership collapsed. With the automobile’s popularity squeezing rail out of the picture, management abandoned the service in 1923.

The Watsonville Transportation Company operated a passenger and freight electric line from Watsonville to a Monterey Bay wharf but abandoned it in 1913, after high seas destroyed the wharf. Pajaro Valley Railway maintained lines connecting Salinas, Spreckels, Watsonville and Moss Landing, but abandoned them in 1929 because of economic troubles.

In the 1960s, Southern Pacific severely downgraded its Coast Daylight line, shrinking services and costs. When Amtrak took over Southern Pacific’s passenger trains in 1971, the service was discontinued entirely. Today, the county’s only passenger rail service is Amtrak’s Coast Starlight, which stops in Salinas in its run from Seattle to Los Angeles.

Source: Rails of California’s Central Coast, by Walter Rice and Emiliano Echeverria. Arcadia Publishing, 2008.