Last train south was sometime in the first week of January 1998. Eleven lumber and flakeboard loads, and it only made it as far as Island Mountain. Yes, NWP knew the storm was coming...not so much a flood rather than torrential rain triggering numerous landslides and slipouts, compounded by washouts caused by plugged culverts and other drainage problems. Hard to remember in the mindframe of today's drought, but the winter of 1997-1998 was the latest of three or four very wet winters in a row, all of which closed the line north of Willits for at least 2-3 months each. NCRA had been successful at obtaining FEMA disaster relief money to help fund repairs the previous winters, and they started repairs as soon as things dried out expecting the same would be forthcoming...however, the cash crunch caused by losing up to a full quarter's worth of business in the previous years forced NCRA to use the FEMA money for things like meeting payroll and other expenditures for which FEMA money could not legally be used, and when NCRA went to FEMA in 1998 the agency refused payments until NCRA could provide a full accounting of exactly how its money had been spent in previous years, but at the time NCRA lacked any accounting systems that could even begin to answer FEMA's questions. NCRA tried funding repairs out of its remaining funds and- if I'm remembering correctly- was about one days worth of work away from patching the line back together when they exhausted all funds and had to stop. FEMA held up future payments until such time as NCRA had acceptable accounting systems in place, and by the time that happened the north end was firmly in a death spiral, helped immesurably by the FRA closing the line south of Willits in November 1998.

Jeff Moore
Elko, NV