INTO THE LIGHT

Southerly End (View South) of Then Tunnel #5 on the Felton Run of S.P.R.R., Between Rincon and Big Trees, circa 1890-1910 ------ Santa Cruz Historic Photograph Collection, University of California, Santa Cruz - Special Collections

"There is no finer scenery in the world than that of the Santa Cruz Mountains and the valleys which can be seen from the Narrow Gauge Railroad cars as they wind around the mountains and descend to the beach at Santa Cruz, and to those who have never passed through a tunnel in a railroad car there is quite a new sensation to be felt by going over the road. No one who has not felt the sensation can have any idea of the strange feeling that comes over one when you leave the bright sunlight to be plunged into pitch darkness and whirled through it at the rate of thirty miles an hour. It feels as if you were going through the infernal regions, dragged by a demon who is puffing and blowing like a grampus, with the exertion he is making to reach on time the prison house of lost souls. Then when you come out into the bright sunlight again, and see spread at your feet a magnificent landscape, and the silver sheen of the day [G]od’s smile on the rolling ocean, such a sensation of unutterable pleasure comes over you, that you wish to look, keep silent, and enjoy, and the most loving word would sound harsh in the presence of so much beauty, and the unspoken poetry of nature."

Source: “A Delightful Trip,” San Jose Herald, April 29, 1882.