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Re: NCJ reports eviromental groups, and county of marin joining in lawsuit against NCRA
Author: Jeff Moore
Date: 11-28-2007 - 22:27
caboverbob-
Yes, at one time the NWP was profitable for SP. Not only profitable, but very, very profitable. Those financials were based on huge numbers of carloads of redwood heading south out of Eureka. Once the forests became unavailable for harvesting for a variety of reasons- and not just the creation of Redwood National Park- then the railroad became a financial burden, which eventually did lead SP to walk away.
If anyone wants to get at least some idea of what once was...Humboldt State University library has a huge collection of aerial photographs of several parts of the north coast available on their website in the special collections area. These photographs focus on the communities around Humboldt Bay, with the bulk of them covering Arcata and Eureka. Spend some time to look through them and marvel at all of the sawmills that once operated but are housing developments or vacant fields now. Hell, at one time the tiny Arcata & Mad River ALONE served well over a dozen sawmills on their seven point seven miles of track...you'd be hard pressed today to find that many active mills left on the entirety of the north coast. The photographer circled the NWP's Eureka yard a few times, and the number of locomotives and variety of cars visible in the photos is nothing short of amazing. I think it is called the Schuster Collection, or something like that.
When I was in college I became good friends with a man who worked as a brakeman on the NWP for a few years back in the 50's. At the time the railroad sent 300-500 carloads south each day and had several hundred men in the section gangs constantly working on the railroad.
I don't think the NWP will ever be able to survive without substantial subsidies. The one thing I don't see discussed much is funding for the railroad versus funding for the competing highways- when I graduated from college and left the north coast the railroad boosters were pointing to the amount of money the state proposed to spend on just a new interchange between Highways 101 and 36 south of Fortuna and remarking that the same amount of money would more than pay for the complete rehabilitation of the entire railroad. At the time the FRA closure was still less than two years old.
I no longer really have a dog in this fight. I have become convinced that a more basic question in all of this is that we have created public agencies but have utterly failed to give them to tools to do the job they have been tasked to do. More and more often the agencies are losing not because of the content of decisions they make but because of the proceedural errors they commit while making the decisions- CEQA at the state level and NEPA at the national level are the two biggest culprits and provide the best handle for NIMBY's and others opposed to agency actions to grab onto to get something they don't like stopped. And our judicial system is constantly re-writing these laws through the precedents their decisions set.
Enough for me for tonight.
Jeff Moore
Elko, NV
Yes, at one time the NWP was profitable for SP. Not only profitable, but very, very profitable. Those financials were based on huge numbers of carloads of redwood heading south out of Eureka. Once the forests became unavailable for harvesting for a variety of reasons- and not just the creation of Redwood National Park- then the railroad became a financial burden, which eventually did lead SP to walk away.
If anyone wants to get at least some idea of what once was...Humboldt State University library has a huge collection of aerial photographs of several parts of the north coast available on their website in the special collections area. These photographs focus on the communities around Humboldt Bay, with the bulk of them covering Arcata and Eureka. Spend some time to look through them and marvel at all of the sawmills that once operated but are housing developments or vacant fields now. Hell, at one time the tiny Arcata & Mad River ALONE served well over a dozen sawmills on their seven point seven miles of track...you'd be hard pressed today to find that many active mills left on the entirety of the north coast. The photographer circled the NWP's Eureka yard a few times, and the number of locomotives and variety of cars visible in the photos is nothing short of amazing. I think it is called the Schuster Collection, or something like that.
When I was in college I became good friends with a man who worked as a brakeman on the NWP for a few years back in the 50's. At the time the railroad sent 300-500 carloads south each day and had several hundred men in the section gangs constantly working on the railroad.
I don't think the NWP will ever be able to survive without substantial subsidies. The one thing I don't see discussed much is funding for the railroad versus funding for the competing highways- when I graduated from college and left the north coast the railroad boosters were pointing to the amount of money the state proposed to spend on just a new interchange between Highways 101 and 36 south of Fortuna and remarking that the same amount of money would more than pay for the complete rehabilitation of the entire railroad. At the time the FRA closure was still less than two years old.
I no longer really have a dog in this fight. I have become convinced that a more basic question in all of this is that we have created public agencies but have utterly failed to give them to tools to do the job they have been tasked to do. More and more often the agencies are losing not because of the content of decisions they make but because of the proceedural errors they commit while making the decisions- CEQA at the state level and NEPA at the national level are the two biggest culprits and provide the best handle for NIMBY's and others opposed to agency actions to grab onto to get something they don't like stopped. And our judicial system is constantly re-writing these laws through the precedents their decisions set.
Enough for me for tonight.
Jeff Moore
Elko, NV
