Howard's review was very informative. It's clear that all of the freight traffic for the foreseeable future (until a bunch of repairs are done) is in Watsonville, so SCMB for practical purposes is switching the local industrial traffic for UP. I've seen mention here and elsewhere of a sand operation in the Wilder area (is this Granite Rock?) that might be interested in rail but as with Probuild that's out of the picture until/unless the tracks between SC & Watsonville get fixed.

D'ya suppose that if construction in the Valley ever gets going again Big Trees might start hauling sand loads too? Didn't happen before the crash so probably won't happen now just because the County (OK the RTC) owns the connecting railroad instead of UP.

Is the County really going to fix the La Selva bridge? Or do they have to replace it? How about the others (Capitola and SLRiver can't be in much better shape)?