I for one one (amongst others) can tell you how to make a small fortune in shortline railroading
and oddly enough it's the same formula for doing so in Las Vegas. Jeff's post is evocative and as
I write this I think back and wonder where I'd be if we'd managed to buy the Mina branch, most
probably in a similar situation as Jeff but maybe not. Our intent was to do everything we could
from the standpoint of almost being a Chamber of Commerce and focus on bringing new industries to
the line as well as providing service. Jeff Forbis was at the mercy of and essentially a captive
audience of Redd Emmerson and a few others, none of whom seemed to be interested in local business
growth. I'd hope for Jeff's sake when the other mill in Burney changed hands that they'd reverted
to rail shipments (they were close enough to run a siding) but that never happened. Between the
anti-logging groups and the general economy it was going to be a tough ride. Dicolite had said
on several occasions that they were going to expand but the mill reached a very nice point of
profitability at the existing level that expansion didn't seem to make a lot of sense. Add this
to the fact that the railroad had a lot of old ties and old rail and fixes of any magnitude would
have been very expensive. If the SPI Burney mill had been say at the edge of McCloud things would
have been hugely different but houses of cards aren't built like that.