D. B. Arthur Wrote:
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> 92614P Wrote:
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> -----
>
> > Questions: Where they come out of a tunnel
> through a mountain on to a metal frame trestle,
> does that scene still exist intact?
>
> That's at Island Mountain and, as far as I know,
> everything is still there but there are no trains.
> The bridge had to be completely replaced after the
> 1964 floods and the tunnel was causing some major
> problems that SP had to fix and eventually led to
> to give up on the line.


Thank you,
D.B.!

So that is the fabled Island!


"There are 30 tunnels in 95 miles - the most impressive at Island Mountain in southern Humboldt, nearly a mile long.

When it was completed and the obligatory golden spike was driven in 1914, the adventure would enter rail history as the most expensive, per mile, section built up to that time.

Maintenance would also prove an expensive venture. Example: On the day the golden spike event was scheduled at Cain Rock between Alderpoint and Island Mountain, the ceremonial First Train to Eureka was delayed 12 hours by a landslide.

BUT, OH IT WAS - and still is - a beautiful ride. Winding along the north fork of the Eel, passengers could look into the clear waters and count the salmon or trout, chase an occasional bear down the tracks, spot a mountain lion in the timber, or a band of elk at a watering hole.

Until the Redwood Highway was opened in the mid-1920s, it was the accepted mode of travel for southbound passengers. It carried Humboldt's lumber, ferried troops during World War II and - until the very last gasp of passenger service, the Budd car, was discontinued in 1971 - it had its loyal clientele.

Freight trains hung on for several years more, but the going got tougher after the winters of 1960 and '64 brought tunnel cave-ins and enough slides to build another mountain.

When fire destroyed the Island Mountain tunnel in the fall of 1979, Southern Pacific (which had taken over as sole owner of NWP in 1929), asked permission to abandon the line."