I do wonder about "the middle" though. I read through the papers at the state link previously posted here. So SMART gets the line from the Mendocino/Sonoma Line south in total, without any freight easement to NCRA on it. The line north of Willits gets "railbanked" to the trail people. What about county line to Willits? If NCRA is disbanded after all this stuff is done, who gets the middle?

If there's still a wish to reactivate rail all the way to Willits, somebody has to own and maintain what's left in there pending a sugar daddy to fund reconstruction and subsidize operation. Is there perhaps a scheme to sell or give it to Cal Western so they can have an outlet to national rail at Cloverdale? Not that Skunk would want it - they don't even have money to fix a little tunnel for restoring access to Fort Bragg, let alone fixing the extensive destroyed track (and more than a few tunnels and bridges) on the old NWP line.

And for what traffic? The mill at Fort Bragg is long gone, so there's no reason to provide rail access to that town. If there any mill(s) in Willits remain, they are long since switched to trucks. There might be one big mill left in the Ukiah valley, but you don't spend a ton of money rebuilding a railroad to serve just one mill. Grapes, wine, and pot don't ship by rail. Tourists might, if 101 were bad enough to actually restrict access to the area, but 101's fine now that the 2-lane between Cloverdale and Hopland is gone (except, before Covid, for weekends through Hopland, if the bypass hasn't been built yet - and it hasn't and probably never will be).