Now that the GGRM is out of the picture, can we seriously just abandon the line and be over with it all? I know this is an unpopular opinion here and trust me, I'm no extremist like Brian Peoples, but a bike trail just might be what's best for the line. Heavy industry is gone and never coming back. Anything Probuild needs to ship should just go by truck, which is the better way for freight to go anyway. The only thing freight wise the branch is good for now is car storage, which as we've seen in the past has been mostly hazmat tank cars, the same ones responsible for the murder of 47 Canadian citizens a few years ago. Do you want that sitting in your back yard?

As for transit, the entire line is slow and built to very old, outdated standards, so I don't see how future passenger operation can be viable. And no, a tourist railroad is NOT the best use for a publicly owned right of way. I'm all for good passenger service as much as the next guy, but an old, slow line that comes into town from the long way around through Watsonville will fail harder than a revived Coast Daylight. The smartest thing to do is to convert obsolete rail lines like the SC branch into bike trails, which have proven popular many times over. New passenger traffic should be on new rights of way built to modern standards, like HSR.