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Re: Particle Board Plant Storing A&MR 44 Tonner Closed/Sold
Author: Jeff Moore
Date: 12-25-2011 - 21:00
Thank you for your memories...much appreciated. Further comments are embedded below.
> Export your raw materials/resources AND import
> finished goods. Our economy seems to now be based
> on selling each other hamburgers and goods
> imported from China.
We now live in a service economy, and in my view we have largely lost sight of what it takes to produce things. Fact is, most Americans live at a much higher standard of living than almost anywhere else in the world, and we seem to have convinced ourselves that we can live at this level without any impacts to the environment largely by exporting the impacts our lifestyles create to other parts of the world.
As long as it remains far cheaper to produce goods elsewhere and import them to this country, that will be the norm. In the meantime, jobs will be lost here, wages will continue to stagnate or go down, and we will become increasingly ignorant of how we fit into the bigger picture.
The service economy we have created- and that economists talk about as our future- still requirs vast production and consumption of finished products made from natural resources to keep things going.
> I worked for EUKA for a very short time, and here
> is what I can recall. The Arcata local went to
> work at Korlex each evening, heading first to Blue
> Lake. We threw fusees out at the crossings to keep
> someone from broadsiding the train. Simpson loaded
> cars on a short runaround around the corner from
> the mill at Korbel. There was another mill below
> Blue Lake we switched on our way home. At Korbles,
> there was Costa Trucking (reload lumber), then
> Flakeboard was good for a few cars. We left our
> train at the wye and headed to Emerson's mill. We
> would shove the loads up on the bridge, then the
> engineer would get the engine in the clear at
> Emersons, then the conductor would gravity drop
> the cars by - hopefully stopping before the hiway
> crossing. Didn't usually have any reason to go
> further except for a rare car of pulp.
This same pattern kept going in the North Coast Railroad days, with a few exceptions.
Declining track conditions forced NCR to quit the old A&MR in 1993, especially after the railroad discovered one of the piers on the Mad River Bridge had become undermined. One train derailed on the bridge, damaging four Railbox boxcars. Simpson set up a reload at an old plant out on the Arcata bottoms, accessed by an old spur at the north leg of the wye to Samoa, and the other plant you mentioned, Blue Lake Forest Products at Glendale, used the same reload at the trucking company at Korblex. The gravity drop at the Sierra Pacific mill continued to the end, and NCR did get periodic lumber traffic from Samoa, but it was very spotty- they would ship like crazy for a few weeks, then cut off all rail traffic completely for months on end. Tidal movements in the bay would undercut a stretch of track between Manila and Samoa, and NCR usually had to dump a few cars of rock into the washout whenever the mill did resume shipping.
> Back to the wye, picked up the train, maybe pull
> an empty car of propane. next stop was Bracut,
> always good for a couple cars, maybe pull some
> cement empties just before Eureka. You would meet
> the Scotia local in Eureka yard and trade trains.
> After some swithing to blok your train, head back
> towards Korblex - maybe spotting cement loads
> (another gravity drop), propane or some empties.
> If you didn't have enough empties to respot
> everyone as you pulled loads, they might have to
> call an extra board crew to make a Blue Lake turn
> in the morning.
The cement and propane traffic long since disappeared by the spring of 1994.
> The Scotia local would leave Scotia after some
> switching to reblock the train. PALCO had a plant
> in Fortuna to switch. There was some kind of mill
> just south of Eureka yard. They usually got to
> Eureka first, so would spot the transload cars in
> the yard, and maybe work the cement spur. On the
> way back, Eel River sawmill was always good for a
> few cars. The rest was hit and miss - maybe a trip
> up the Van Duzen or carload of butter from the
> creamery. They would work the PALCO interchange at
> Scotia and have the train assembled. Road jobs
> went to work Monday-Saturday at Scotia and
> Willits. The Willits crew would pull loads and
> some empty cars off the short yard tracks in front
> of the depot, but most cars came of 42 track. The
> road crews would meet at Island Mountain and trade
> trains, which was complicated because one or both
> trains would not fit the siding. The only other
> track was a skeleton spur, good for empties but
> not loads. Some interesting switching moves. After
> getting back to Willits, the train would leave the
> cars on the Combs track and wye the engine.
Schmidtbauer Lumber was the plant just south of the yard. EUKA did operate log and gravel trains originating in the country south of Willits, but apparently that was either before or after your time. The NWP did come north of Willits a ways to serve a gravel shipper after the rest of the north end shut down.
> Export your raw materials/resources AND import
> finished goods. Our economy seems to now be based
> on selling each other hamburgers and goods
> imported from China.
We now live in a service economy, and in my view we have largely lost sight of what it takes to produce things. Fact is, most Americans live at a much higher standard of living than almost anywhere else in the world, and we seem to have convinced ourselves that we can live at this level without any impacts to the environment largely by exporting the impacts our lifestyles create to other parts of the world.
As long as it remains far cheaper to produce goods elsewhere and import them to this country, that will be the norm. In the meantime, jobs will be lost here, wages will continue to stagnate or go down, and we will become increasingly ignorant of how we fit into the bigger picture.
The service economy we have created- and that economists talk about as our future- still requirs vast production and consumption of finished products made from natural resources to keep things going.
> I worked for EUKA for a very short time, and here
> is what I can recall. The Arcata local went to
> work at Korlex each evening, heading first to Blue
> Lake. We threw fusees out at the crossings to keep
> someone from broadsiding the train. Simpson loaded
> cars on a short runaround around the corner from
> the mill at Korbel. There was another mill below
> Blue Lake we switched on our way home. At Korbles,
> there was Costa Trucking (reload lumber), then
> Flakeboard was good for a few cars. We left our
> train at the wye and headed to Emerson's mill. We
> would shove the loads up on the bridge, then the
> engineer would get the engine in the clear at
> Emersons, then the conductor would gravity drop
> the cars by - hopefully stopping before the hiway
> crossing. Didn't usually have any reason to go
> further except for a rare car of pulp.
This same pattern kept going in the North Coast Railroad days, with a few exceptions.
Declining track conditions forced NCR to quit the old A&MR in 1993, especially after the railroad discovered one of the piers on the Mad River Bridge had become undermined. One train derailed on the bridge, damaging four Railbox boxcars. Simpson set up a reload at an old plant out on the Arcata bottoms, accessed by an old spur at the north leg of the wye to Samoa, and the other plant you mentioned, Blue Lake Forest Products at Glendale, used the same reload at the trucking company at Korblex. The gravity drop at the Sierra Pacific mill continued to the end, and NCR did get periodic lumber traffic from Samoa, but it was very spotty- they would ship like crazy for a few weeks, then cut off all rail traffic completely for months on end. Tidal movements in the bay would undercut a stretch of track between Manila and Samoa, and NCR usually had to dump a few cars of rock into the washout whenever the mill did resume shipping.
> Back to the wye, picked up the train, maybe pull
> an empty car of propane. next stop was Bracut,
> always good for a couple cars, maybe pull some
> cement empties just before Eureka. You would meet
> the Scotia local in Eureka yard and trade trains.
> After some swithing to blok your train, head back
> towards Korblex - maybe spotting cement loads
> (another gravity drop), propane or some empties.
> If you didn't have enough empties to respot
> everyone as you pulled loads, they might have to
> call an extra board crew to make a Blue Lake turn
> in the morning.
The cement and propane traffic long since disappeared by the spring of 1994.
> The Scotia local would leave Scotia after some
> switching to reblock the train. PALCO had a plant
> in Fortuna to switch. There was some kind of mill
> just south of Eureka yard. They usually got to
> Eureka first, so would spot the transload cars in
> the yard, and maybe work the cement spur. On the
> way back, Eel River sawmill was always good for a
> few cars. The rest was hit and miss - maybe a trip
> up the Van Duzen or carload of butter from the
> creamery. They would work the PALCO interchange at
> Scotia and have the train assembled. Road jobs
> went to work Monday-Saturday at Scotia and
> Willits. The Willits crew would pull loads and
> some empty cars off the short yard tracks in front
> of the depot, but most cars came of 42 track. The
> road crews would meet at Island Mountain and trade
> trains, which was complicated because one or both
> trains would not fit the siding. The only other
> track was a skeleton spur, good for empties but
> not loads. Some interesting switching moves. After
> getting back to Willits, the train would leave the
> cars on the Combs track and wye the engine.
Schmidtbauer Lumber was the plant just south of the yard. EUKA did operate log and gravel trains originating in the country south of Willits, but apparently that was either before or after your time. The NWP did come north of Willits a ways to serve a gravel shipper after the rest of the north end shut down.
