Here's a couple of good examples.

When the Port of Tillamook Bay took over the SP Tillamook Branch back in 1990 or thereabouts, the SP sold the entire line (Tillamook to just north of Hillsboro) for, IIRC, about $7 million.

When BN started selling off its Oregon branchlines, many of the lines were sold to P&W for literally dollars per mile, while the underlying right-of-way was DONATED (yes, given away for free) to ODOT.

When TriMet and Washington County had their grand scheme to build WES they were already signing construction contracts, contracts with Colorado Railcar...when...oops, they didn't own the railroad! ODOT owned the railroad from Tigard south to Wilsonville and they had no problem with WES. P&W had no problem, since they'd get a brand new track structure paid for by taxpayers, plus a lucrative operating contract, plus a PERMANENT EASEMENT to run trains on (basically P&W gets brand new track, guaranteed revenue, doesn't have to maintain the track, and the RIGHT to run freight trains on it!) But...Beaverton-Tigard was owned by Union Pacific...

Fearing that this whole commuter rail project would collapse (or simply become a Tigard-Wilsonville commuter rail project), Washington County officials had to fly to Omaha to secure a deal. UP had them - and sold the railroad for $24 million.

When WES was sold to the public it was supposed to be an $80 million project to fix up the tracks, build stations and buy cars. The "official" budget was $117.5 million. After having to pay off Union Pacific and bail out Colorado Railcar, it was $161 million.

Oops.

Union Pacific is a very smart landowner and knows that while the railroad itself is worth virtually nothing, the underlying land is quite valuable with utility easement potential, oftentimes prime real estate in desirable locations, and of course it could always be used for a railroad later (just try to obtain right of way for a brand new railroad!) TriMet and Washington County were idiots for thinking they had it made when they got caught by Union Pacific and had to pay through the roof to buy the track.

Would not surprise me if the Santa Cruz dealings are rather similar to what we saw up here in the Portland area.