Agreed, no real prospects for freight service left on the Samoa branch.

The Sierra Pacific Industries mill at Fairhaven was a good shipper, they averaged 1-3 cars a night. The only shipper beyond that was a Louisiana Pacific sawmill at Samoa that was an on again, off again shipper, they would sometimes go months between shipments up until they closed in 1997. The rise and fall of Humboldt Bay constantly ate away at a stretch of roadbed just north of where the Eureka-Samoa bridge comes onto the peninsula, and North Coast Railroad would have to fill the resulting washout whenever L-P had cars to ship. I'm not aware that any of the pulp mills shipped much if anything on the railroad at least by the middle 1990s.

I have my serious doubts that the NWP will ever get that far north again. Alf touched on the two remaining sawmills left on the north coast, what he didn't say was that they are the last survivors of what had been 12 forest products plants scattered from Fort Bragg to Korbel in operation in 1998. All the others are closed, and most of them have been reduced to concrete pads. There is consistent talk about reopening the railroad to Eureka, either by rebuilding the line south through Willits and beyond or building an entirely new railroad east out to the valley, what's not clear to me is how such a railroad would support itself should it come to fruition- the supporters usually talk in terms of Humboldt Bay becoming a deep water port and supporting the railroad with that traffic. Honestly, it would take something like that to bring the railroad back, because I don't see the timber industry coming back on any kind of a scale that would support the railroad again. But I could be wrong.

Jeff Moore
Elko, NV