Gary, most of the things you suggested are not feasible for various reasons, from regulatory to basic economics. A good chunk of the "green" initiatives would be, and have been in other forms in the county, shot down by environmental and advocacy groups.

As for the assertion that SP "chased" away carload business on the branch, I'm sure there were instances of that. However, the bigger issue is the fact most of those customers left the county due to economic and local government pressures unrelated to rail service. The City of Santa Cruz has spent the past 2 decades running light industrial out on a rail, no pun intended. It's hard to retain a customer when they pull up stakes entirely. The cannery at Seabright and Beech-nut left ages ago. All the customers near the yard were replaced by gang controlled housing projects and condos. Wrigley was the last potential non-lumber or cement customer left on the line, and they're history as well. You posted in a previous thread about the grand plans for Eccles & Eastern, but those were based on continued sand hauling. We both know what happened to the sand pits a handful of years later. It's now up to the City to be more business friendly. They hired a multi-hundred thousand dollar a year consultant to tell them how to attract all sorts of business, but I'm not holding my breath.

As for the Sierra, I have little doubt they went into the deal with eyes wide open about the future of Cemex. The closure is NOT a surprise as Cemex recently cut back the skeleton crew, as well as talking to Sierra about removing all their stored hopper onsite. In fact, the plant had essentially been closed many months before the "temporary closure" last March. They hadn't been a big rail customer for over a year, and most of the carloads during that time involved coal leaving the plant. As of last month Cemex continued to move forward with their quarry expansion plans. This points to an interest in keeping it attractive as a sale candidate at some point down the line.

Several people mentioned the fact that the branch is FRA Excepted track. One thing to remember is that this was not a status handed down by the FRA, but rather a UP policy for "industrial leads" to cut down on inspection times, keeping a certain gauge, etc. UP recently rehabbed the Vasona Branch with all welded relay rail, new ties, and surfacing work. Even after that they left it in its previous FRA Excepted status. Any dinner trains would likely run Santa Cruz to Davenport, a roughly 10 mile section that is west of the problem child steel bridges in Santa Cruz and La Selva. Bringing that Davenport Branch stretch up to standards for a slow poke dinner train is significantly different than trying to rebuild it for commuter trains. One only has to look at the heavily used yet spindly Big Trees passenger line to see that.

The real freight customer base is in Watsonville, where they are currently three consistent reefer shippers and one or two sporadic ones. Sierra seems to be trying hard to keep those customers happy, and is likely talking to old ones. They run 2-3 times a week as needed. On Thursday they were down there switching 5+ reefers at the main three, and currently have a couple of empties waiting on the interchange at Watsonville Jct. On the Santa Cruz end, Pro Build had 3 loads delivered to the Big Trees interchange this week, and 2 more are waiting at the Junction. All in all the branch has more business in its just handed over state than a good chunk of the Coast. As for the Davenport Branch, Sierra made it clear that some car storage for hire is in the cards, which should add to the line's revenue.

So, what I'm getting at is that while unfortunate, the Cemex announcement isn't necessarily the death knell for the branch. The County is on track to purchase the line in the next two months, and the hope is Sierra will continue to be the operator and expand use of the line beyond what we see today. Time will tell what happens, but from what I've seen so far from them I'm cautiously optimistic that they can make a go of it.