I myself am not totally sure, I am volunteer at a local museum (has a beautiful HO model railroad depicting Arizona's Verde Valley during its great mining days) and one of the railroad members mentioned something about it a long while ago, all that I really remember is something about the state or something not wanting the line taken out for at least 50 years because it could prove to be a very valuable piece of trackage if vast amount of military supplies needed to be shipped. Transcontinental was mentioned in there somewhere, not sure if he got side tracked or what but I do remember him saying it. It makes sense to me, don't know about the rest of you.