Rich and BOB2 are right, but throw enough money at anything (and you know who's money it will be) snd it can be built. Virgin Redwood forests were Humboldt County's only goldmine of consequence and 100 years of that never got this alternate rail line built. Humboldt Bay is a terrible port in the winter months. Generally shallow, the bay and jetty would need rebuilding and expansion and you know how the environmental groups are going to react to that. The bay is a constant dredging problem now because sedimentation is so high. You can't discount the affect of the 1906 Earthquake on the location of the present NWP, but San Francisco was long rebuilt by 1914 and growth in the rest of California and the West, and the coming Panama Canal was in there as much as anything. Redwood gold would be on the move Worldwide. Eureka was always a "mirror" of San Francisco anyway.
ARD