Jeff Moore Wrote:
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> >
> 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.
>
> M-K worked under the direction and control of Southern Pacific.If roadbed compaction did not meet SP'S spec's then it was up to SP to force M-K to re-compact the sub grade and make it right before signing off on the contract. Both M-K and SP were under the gun to get the tracks open as soon as possible. The major slides north of Island Mountain MP 206 area extended hundreds of feet above the ROW. Roadbed compaction thirty or forty feet wide would have no effect on a hillside sliding down two hundred feet above you. For a while they simply pulled a hundred feet of track to the north , let the slide come down, doze a roadbed on top of it ,pull the tracks together again and run a train. Then pull the tracks apart until the next train was called.