Re: Arcata & Mad River

This line is nicknamed "The Annie and Mary"
I worked the line several times as a Conductor for Eureka Southern aboute late 1990. There were only 2 active customers on the line, one was a loading area around the corner from the (Simpson?) mill at the end of the line at Korblex, and the other one was below Blue Lake. The line was always light rail, A&MR dieselized using 44 tonners in multiple. ES only allowed a light GP-7 (xCCT 70/nee RDG - still in Eureka?) but it was known to regularly break timbers in the bridges. I refered to the bridges as "Snap, Crackle and Pop". There is a truss bridge over the Mad River of extremely light construction, the train derailed on the approach after I left.
The tracks showed their ng heritage, and we used a half case of fusees each trip to keep the idiots from broadsiding the open flats at the grade crossings. The operations were very casual. I remember switching the mill below Blue Lake one night and finding the engineer out of the cab at the adjacent fence talking to his father-in-law, stopping on Halloween so he could give his nieces and nephews their treats. Another time we were going up the line with a few open flats and some boys jumped on the rear one for a ride up the line. They also had a rope swing to be able to swing out over the empty cars to get on.
Unfortunately I have little hope of the line ever being reopened for freight. The track is just too light for today's 143 ton centerbeams and would have to be completely replaced (including all bridges). Without the NWP/ES/NCR being reopened, there is no need anyway.
The best chance might be that the local museum might use it someday. I heard that they are bringing one of the original GE 44 tonners back home.