Re: NCRA TRAFFIC TO SAN RAFAEL
Author: Little Lake Listener
Date: 12-22-2007 - 17:50
"fishes" says, "Someone explain to me how if the train doesn’t go all the way up to Eureka where the millions needed just to get from Samoa to Eureka are going to come from?" Huh?
Who says it will cost "millions needed just to get from Samoa to Eureka...?" In 2002 - 2003 the engineering estimate to restore 16.4 track-miles from Eureka to Samoa, including crossing signal repairs, was less than $1.5 million -- $325,000 of which went into replacing a single timber pile trestle. Okay, five years have past, the locals and Mother Nature have destroyed more of the property, and the total repair cost has grown. Let's say the cost is now doubled to $3 million. At a 10% average cost of capital, over the 15-year economic life of the property, the required minimum return is now up to almost $395,000 per year. So the answer is simple; any Entrepreneur who can increase his or her profits by at least $395,000 per year will invest his or her own money to upgrade the line from Eureka to Samoa. Moreover, to the extent the Public believes its policy is served by putting money into the line, the Entrepreneur’s cost is reduced and his or her minimum return threshold drops. That's who. [Take note Marcus.] All of which, however, begs the question of the merits (or lack thereof) of any assumption the train won’t “go all the way up to Eureka.”