Western Railroad Discussion > Skunk Train

 Does anyone have any info on Skunk train tunnel collapse? When it happened, how long before it is fixed, background info? TIA/ AIA/ KFC

> TIA/ AIA/ KFC

LSMFT?

mp345 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> > TIA/ AIA/ KFC
>
> LSMFT?

TIA = Thanks In Advance
AIA = ???
KFC = Lunch!

Apoligies in Advance
Thanks in Advance
KFC Lunch!

As a long time member on and off on this site, I found it important to include all three of these so that my posts would be micromanaged, scrutinized over the slightest of things. 

Tunnel closed. Will be for a long time. no money to fix it, Skunk train runs from fort bragg to tunnel and back,,,,,about 2 miles,

On the eastern end they run a little less than eight miles from Willits to a siding called "Crowley", which is west of the Summit tunnel and on the downhill slope.  

Tunnel 1 has been an issue for the railroad for quite a while.  The eastern end of the tunnel collapsed in April 2013, which almost doomed the railroad then.  The railroad started talking at that time about logging redwood trees from within their right-of-way in order to finance the repairs, but the Save The Redwoods league stepped in and bought the harvesting rights, which went a long way towards financing the $450,000 or so in repair costs.  The line reopened sometime around late summer of 2013, but the bore remained intact for less than two years.  Various reports are that the hill slope above and around the western end of the bore has been becoming incrreasingly unstable for decades, and around March or April of 2015 about 200 feet of the western end of the bore collapsed.  There are conflicting news reports from the time as to whether or not the railroad was then working on the bore or the slope around the portal, or if the work then being done contributed to the collapse, but at any rate the railroad did have a contractor at work shortly after the partial collapse, but after a few months the railroad apparently fired the contractor and stopped all further work.  Google Earth's most recent imagery covering the tunnel area is from 2013 and 2018, between those two dates a lot of vegetation above the western portal has been removed and what looks like a lot of slope stabilization work has been done.  It also looks very much like the rails have been pulled from the western portal of the tunnel out across the bridge to where the switch to the maintenance spur takes off.  The railroad was telling people in March and April of 2015 that trains would be rolling through the tunnel by May, but that has yet to happen, and instead in the summer of 2015 the railroad instituted the "Pudding Creek Express" service that runs about two and a half miles out of Fort Bragg before shoving back to the depot.      

There has been little to no news or obvious substantial work on the tunnel in the last four years, and the most commonly heard official line is that they are waiting for the ground to dry out before resuming work.  In the meantime track conditions on the eastern end declined to the point the trains out of Willits only go about eight miles out, to around the base of Ridge Hill on the west side, before returning back to Willits.  The railroad is apparently generating revenues from somewhere, though, as they have been talking about purchasing a good chunk of the old sawmill site in Fort Bragg over the last year, and the parent company has moved the former SP 0-6-0 that's been on the Sierra Northern down at Oakdale for the last decade or so up to Fort Bragg, I think I remember hearing to be cosmetically restored and placed on display.  

A quater century ago they used to run two trains a day out of Northspur from both ends of the line.  I wonder if we'll ever see that again.  

Jeff Moore
Elko, NV 



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/11/19 19:57 by JDLX.

JDLX Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------

> A quarter century ago they used to run two trains a
> day out of Northspur from both ends of the line. 
> I wonder if we'll ever see that again.  
>

It is amazing how things change.  What was once one of those must do tourist stops is gone.   I rode the train twice back in the early 1990s from Fort Bragg to North Spur and it was well patronized with both trains nearly sold out.  Northspur sold lunch and was a neat place to be as both trains switched for the return trip.  I never rode the entire line, but from Fort Bragg to North Spur it was curvey.  I don't think there was a straight section on the railroad.  

Todd Clark
Canyon Country, CA
Trainorders.com

I rode back in 2013 just after the tunnel was repaired the first time.  So glad I had the opportunity!