At the moment, I can only find a grand total of four mills in the area south of Willits that are still operating, by default these have to be the ones of which Mike speaks. They are:

1. Redwood Empire in Cloverdale
2. Agwood in Ukiah
3. Medocino Redwood in Ukiah
4. Willits Redwood Company in Willits

What I'd really like to see is how much these mills actually shipped on the NWP prior to 1998, and what projected carloads a revived NWP could expect to handle should it reopen. Mendocino Redwood is the only one of these mills with any substantial size, Redwood Empire is a medium sized mill, the other two are small outfits.

Looking farther afield at potential reload traffic for Willits, at the moment the only operating mills are Schmidbauer in Eureka and Humboldt Redwood in Scotia, the only two survivors of the 12 sawmills or other forest product plants between Fort Bragg and Willits that were active rail shippers when the last trains ran in 1998. Schmidbauer is in the process of reopening the old Simpson mill at Korbel, they expect to resume production sometime this year, which will bring the total to three. The closed plants, most of which are now concrete pads at best, included some of North Coast Railroad and then NWP's biggest shippers on the north end.

I still have trouble seeing the makings of a viable railroad operation with what's left industrial wise in the area. I'd love to be proven wrong someday.

Jeff Moore
Elko, NV