Part 3 (of 3): Rails to Trails in Our Backyard
In my garage rests a beautiful Peugeot ten-speed that I purchased new in 1972. Back then I used it to commute to class at Chico State and later, occasionally, to my teaching assignment eight miles south in Durham on a bike path that once was the route of the Sacramento Northern Railway.
So, the idea of a hiking/biking path from Cloverdale to Humboldt Bay sets my mind to dreaming of hopping on the Peugeot and pedaling the entire distance. Imagine! Following the route of the old Northwestern Pacific through vineyards and foothills to Ukiah and Willits then though the rugged and remote Eel River canyon, tunneling beneath stands of redwoods and madrone, ultimately arriving at the coast with its sea gull calls and wisps of salt air. [Understand that I get a bit tuckered out just cycling back from the coffee joint just a few blocks downtown, but that’s beside the point.]
In the early 1900s, the NWP appeared to be a good transportation idea, one that would link the Eureka area with the outside world, sending redwood south and agricultural goods, manufactured products, and tourists north. But geology, geomorphology, and weather ~ essentially Mother Nature, herself ~ had other ideas. So, railbanking the route (preserving the grade but no longer enabling rail traffic) and repurposing it as a recreational trail seems a good use of her remains.
A roadblock may be around the bend, however. A group interested in transporting coal from Wyoming’s Powder River Basin (Hey! That’s Walt Longmire’s neck of the woods!) to export markets in Asia has proposed revitalizing the old NWP as a critical link from the Union Pacific right-of-way near Suisun to a yet-to-be-built transshipment facility at Humboldt Bay. Called the North Coast Railroad Company, the group has filed formal opposition to the proposal to railbank the old NWP route and convert it to trail. The Company intends to acquire the line “and restore it to operating condition to support future, high-volume traffic flows.” The company claims that it has $1.2 billion in their pocket(s), but those in the know suggest it would cost twice that to restore the line.
Political leaders ranging from local city council members to area Congress-folk are lining up against the efforts to return freight traffic for a couple of reasons. 1) Globally, the growing belief that burning fossil fuel such as coal is harmful to the planet; and 2) locally, the persnickety nature of Mother Nature and her inclination to toss a trainload of subbituminous coal into the Eel in the event of a track failure or landslide.
It will be interesting to see if the coal train somehow derails the Great Redwood Trail.
Absent the above, it may be ten or more years before the Great Redwood Trail comes fully to fruition. In those years, issues like the protection of neighboring property, accommodation of overnight campers, infrastructure maintenance and trail security will be addressed and resolved. However, given that time frame, my dream of pedaling from here to Eureka on a then-60-year-old bicycle ~ at age 80-plus myself ~ may always be just a dream.
But that old Peugeot is a darned good bike and I have a strapping grandkid or two who’ll be about 25 at the time.
Hmmmm… Guess who might be getting an antique ten speed and, along with that, a mission…
Resources:
For more information on the history of the Northwestern Pacific Railroad, check out: http://www.nwprrhs.org/history.html
For progress and details on the Great Redwood Trail, see: http://www.thegreatredwoodtrail.org
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Church of the Open Road Press
