M-K rebuilt both the Island Mountain tunnel and the repairs following the 1964 floods.

When I lived in the Eureka area, I attended a public meeting at which Dan Hauser, then NCRA's director, made some statements to the effect the lack of roadbed compaction and some other shortcuts M-K took in 1964 were a root cause of a lot of the roadbed instability later on. I have heard others dispute that.

As for the Eureka Southern...one thing to keep in mind was that, by the time it started up, the shippers in the Eureka area had been learning to live without rail service for much of the previous five years. Traffic never recovered after the 14 month long closure during the Island Mountain tunnel rebuild, then the winter of 1982-1983 kept the line closed through most of the first half of 1983, and once NWP reopened the line to Eureka service only lasted a couple weeks before the $1,200 per carload surcharge came into effect. Almost no traffic moved north of Willits for the next 16 months. Throw the lingering effects of the recessionary years and changing lumber markets on top of that, no wonder the shippers didn't come back to rail at the same rate they had been. Whipple might have lasted a bit longer than he did had the 1986 El Nino event not forced the issue.

Jeff Moore
Elko, NV