DOS RIOS, Calif. — Horses graze on the high grass next to idle maintenance equipment. Madrones and oak saplings sprout between railroad ties. An abandoned freight car disappears into the black grit riverbank.
Nature is rapidly reclaiming the savage Eel River Canyon from the Northwestern Pacific Railroad. Money approved two years ago by Gov. Gray Davis in a last-ditch bid to revive the freight hauler has been frozen by California's budget crisis.
There's little chance the funds will be restored. After 11 costly years of infrequent service interrupted by massive mudslides, slapdash maintenance and chronic mismanagement, the state's experiment as a railroad baron may be reaching the end of the line.
Critics, including North Coast environmental organizations, say that is a good thing.
"Ideally," said Cynthia Elkins, spokeswoman for the Garberville-based Environmental Protection Information Center, "we should have cut our losses a long time ago and discontinued this economic and ecological disaster, lifting the burden from the shoulders of California taxpayers."
Supporters of the railroad insist that the 300-mile line connecting the Bay Area to the Humboldt coast is a vital freight transportation link in the economically depressed region.
If the Northwestern Pacific is finally derailed by budget constraints, they say, taxpayers might have to pay even more -- potentially hundreds of millions of dollars -- to clean up the mess left behind.
The railroad cannot simply be abandoned or the state would face "huge environmental and economic liability," said state Sen. Wes Chesbro (D-Arcata), who represents the area.
Doug Christy, executive director of the North Coast Railroad Authority, the public body created by the Legislature to run the railroad, said the authority hopes to use federal disaster funds originally designated for the Eel River Canyon to salvage the southern half of the railroad between Willits and Napa.
But, Christy said, state budget cutbacks have scrapped ambitious plans to rebuild the treacherous 110-mile section of track north of Willits where it passes through the Eel River Canyon.
"It's all about money," he said, "and we don't have it."
For state transportation officials, many of whom have consistently opposed the state's costly and controversial experiment as a freight railroad operator, the budget setback is another chapter in what they view as an ongoing saga of wasted public funds and ill-considered policy.
