Forget the trains
The struggle over the train tracks in Humboldt County really is over. I drive past the old engines in Eureka almost every day, and it’s pretty clear that, like everything else made of metal that’s left out in the rain for ten years, they’re past saving. The same is true of the trestles, the track, and any other rolling stock that doesn’t have trees growing through them. Few people would love to have trains running here more than me, but it’s pretty obvious they’re toast.
Twenty years ago I was in a small town in northern Wales, where there used to be a train that carried slate from the mines up the mountains 12 miles or so down to the harbor. As the market for slate declined, the rolling stock wore out, was sold, or just left to rust in peace. By the 1960s, the company had folded and the rights of way were being sold off, but the Blaenau-Ffestiniog Railway wasn’t dead yet. Brits love their railroads, and a group of ex-railroad men and their supporters organized. . .and organized. Within a few years, they’d formed a group from all over Great Britain, and not only bought the right of way, relaid the roadbed and tracks, reconditioned the engines and cars that were left, but tracked down every engine and car the old company had owned from all over Europe.
By the time I rode the train in 1985, the cars were beautifully carpeted, signs over the doors advised “Mind Your Head” (always good advice), the steam engines shone, and volunteer engineers, conductors, oilers and mechanics had the trains running perfectly, filled with train lovers from all over the world, riding (and dining) from Portmadog to Blaenau-Ffestiniog and back.
Local train enthusiasts have dreamed of doing something similar here since God was a little girl, but they’ve never had the hordes of money or legions of volunteers needed to do it, and they haven’t gotten any help from those who think the commercial railroad could make a profit hauling now-absent logs or fish from one side of the county to the other. It might make some sense to try and redo the track from, say, southern Eureka to Scotia, and the steam trains the timber association has could be a real tourist draw where there is some scenery. But the lines from Eureka to Arcata or Samoa would be much better used as trails, and ultimately an extension of the Hammond Trail. To try to pretend they could be anything else is just a waste of a potential resource.