Samoa Hi Rail Excursion - Humboldt Bay Scenic Railroad concept - on the old Northwestern Pacific

Update: the Northwestern Pacific Railroad / Great Redwood Trail has been railbanked.
Hop on board this 1980s HyRail vehicle with THA's Vice President Sean Mitchell and enjoy a little ride on the Humboldt Bay Scenic Railroad. On this short excursion we get a brief history of the Northwestern Pacific Railroad and an introduction to Timber Heritage.
About Timber Heritage:
The Timber Heritage Association (THA) is a volunteer based group whose purpose is to create awareness and appreciation for the impact of timber, logging, and railroads on the growth of Humboldt County. To that effort THA is working to create a timber heritage and rail museum and develop a Humboldt Bay excursion train - Humboldt Bay Scenic Railroad. A proposed 16 mile line between old town Eureka, California, and the Timber Heritage museum shops complex in Samoa, California.
There's plenty of work going behind-the-scenes that we can't wait to show you! If you're interested in helping save portion of the Northwestern Pacific Railroad then please subscribe and stay tuned in for future updates!
Check out our website:
timberheritage.org/our-mission/
Follow the THA Facebook Page:
/ timberheritage
Additional thanks to
Josh Buck
Martin Hansen
Joe Seabuhr
Miles @ Interurban Era!
/ interurbanera
/ interurbane

[@jeffmoore4048]

Great video, thanks for posting it. I do have a couple quick notes and corrections. First, Eureka Southern bought the line north of Willits in September 1984, they declared bankruptcy at the very end of 1986. The bankruptcy trustee ran the railroad until the North Coast Railroad took over on 1 April 1992. Second, I'm almost certain the enginehouse shown at the 4:46 and 9:56 marks is the one D&C had over at Bucksport. D&C finished logging their timber in the Fieldbrook area in 1930, after which time they sold the old Humboldt Northern to the Little River Redwood Company and shifted their operations to the Elk River drainage southeast of Eureka. D&C bought the old Bucksport & Elk River Railroad, over which they hauled logs down to a log dump in Bucksport. In 1933 they extended that line north along the bay to a new log dump, which is seen in this video at the 9:16 mark, some of the trestlework pilings and the log dump structure itself are still in place out in the bay a little ways north of Bayshore Mall, off the Palco Marsh trail. The D&C mill lay in what is now the grassy field underneath the east end of the Samoa bridge, logs would be rafted to it from the two log dumps, the one Sean talks about here until 1930 and then the one down by Bayshore Mall afterwards. Again, thanks for posting it!

[@TimberHeritageAssociation]

Thanks Jeff- Full disclosure, I did this whole thing from memory. (While driving. Haha) Thanks for the corrections, we reached out to Martin for pics of that area but they are few and far between. Glad you liked the video, the goal is to get more people interested in our goals and our awesome little railroad we have here! Cheers. -Sean

[@jeffmoore4048]

@@TimberHeritageAssociation Sean- Thanks for the reply, you did a good job. Full disclosure on my part, I was active in the organization back in the later part of the 1990s back when it was NCLIA and the collection was stored outdoors at Glendale. It's come a long, long ways since that time. Hopefully we'll be able to meet in person someday.

[@chrisschinke7793]

Great and very informative video! As an avid cyclist I'm naturally in favor of converting unused rails to trails, but the idea of having the tracks around the Bay preserved and used for tourist trains sounds like a great idea.

[@elementgypsy]

Great information. Saving history. I hope you get a historical tour train up and running. I hope to ride the skunk train one day. Must be beautiful. We need all kinds of transportation. For tourism, education, but also for everyday. Sad that there are few public rails in so many places in the US. One would think we would have high speed trains by now. Years before Spain had their first bullet train, I thought we would have one soon. Nope. Many places have super fast modern trains , 100s of MPH and we still have same slow Amtrack.

[@2quintly]

Lookin' good, I hope it will roll.

[@stefaniecoppock5147]

The entire line should be restored to connect with the UP. Tourism, with less car traffic is a big win!

[@gretchenchadwick8343]

My special needs son agrees with you on that completely! He thinks rail transportation is highly underrated and should make a comeback being used more often than airplanes ✈🛬🛫🛩 and automobiles 🚘🚗🚙🛻🛣.

[@NormanSilv]

Eat at the Samoa Cook House too! Great history, great food tremendous staff.

[@spcabforward]

Great video! Spent a lot of days on the NWP back in the '80s.

[@sum2automation]

Truly awesome. Thank's so vary much for all your hard work. We need a train around the bay. The county needs to help save all the historical structures, the investment of a train around the bay is the best idea 💡 in long time. This rich history of sawmills fishing and old town should be 100% supported and funded by county taxpayers if needed. It would bring tourists from around the world. This needs to happen before all the infrastructure and buildings are truly gone... :( Thanks again!

[@arandomtrip8082]

Oh nice!! I was really hoping for freight service to come back to Humboldt bay! But a tourist train would be great at longest the trains are revived it would be good if only a big railroad company like the union pacific or the bnsf could make a move to own a large portion all the way to eureka because that port needs rail service as well especially hauling logs and wood chips! Please keep us updated!👍 thanks for the history

[@gretchenchadwick8343]

My son agrees with you on that completely!

[@deancorpuz7349]

You'd be a great tour guide when the speeders are back on the tracks. You do a terrific job providing historic background while imagining a future of new ridership on these rails. I'd love to see them running between Samoa & Eureka, and also down to Fortuna and up to Arcata.

[@timothyteerman9297]

Great video brother

[@allanegleston4931]

i would like to see railbiking as well.

[@AmillennialMillenial]

Very cool. Hope you all can get the railroad running.

[@joel.ha.]

RIP. they ripped it out

[@michaelmayfield4304]

It's now 2 years later. What's the current status?

[@rokfersonrotineque5396]

What location does video start and what direction are you driving?

[@ChrisJones-gx7fc]

So with the recently passed legislation that officially dissolved the NCRA and created the Great Redwood Trail Agency, has THA considered or tried purchasing the 16 miles of track between Samoa and Eureka, or has the GRTA offered to sell those tracks to you? It seems like the GRT is only planned as far north as Eureka, connecting with the Humboldt Bay Trail to continue to Arcata, with no current plan to extend the trail to Samoa thus leaving those tracks in place as well as the tracks between Eureka and Arcata. It would seem to make sense for GRTA to sell those tracks to THA so they can focus on just the trail, and allow THA to more easily restore those tracks for excursion train service.

[@wmtrader]

You should look up Railbanking and how it is used by a rail-to-trails activist to permanently remove tracks. The Humboldt Bay Scenic Railroad will never happen if the plan to Railbank the tracks is carried out. Check out the video on the "TSG Multimedia" channel called "The Greenway Controversy Demystified" and go to the 30-minute mark to learn more about Railbanking.

[@josepholiverdev]

The existing Humboldt Bay trail designs are designed as rail with trail and SB 1029 legislation supports that. The Bay Trail South, currently under review, is supposed to rehabilitate a portion of the railroad in Eureka. THA is simply not in a position to purchase the ROW at this time without significantly more volunteer and donor support.

[@mrsmith1179]

Why anyone would wear a face diaper while out in the fresh ocean air is beyond me, but I loved the content!

[@deancorpuz7349]

My guess is that the people you see wearing masks in the video anticipate that they'll be spending a lot of time in close proximity to the other people, and none of these people want to infect anybody with COVID-19.

[@josepholiverdev]

It was required by the FRA at the time of filming.

[@gretchenchadwick8343]

My son is special needs and he loves trains 🚆🚂🚃🚄🚅🚇🚈🚉🚊🚝🚞🚋 they are one of his favorite things in the whole world 🌎. He hopes things will get better and better for you like the entire line getting restored to connect with Union Pacific and getting passenger cars for use on the line. He also recommends FMW Solutions for help in restoring your steam locomotives because steam engine restoration is one of their primary functions. They have already helped restore steam locomotives like ATSF 3751, US Sugar 148, Southern 4501 and 630 and right now they are restoring Pennsylvania 1361, Pere Marquette 1225, Oregon Rail and Navigation 197, and a Atlantic Coast Line 4-6-2 Pacific.