Freight Traffic
In the late 1980s the railroad's freight redwood lumber traffic rapidly declined. Georgia-Pacific gradually shifted lumber shipments to more flexible highway trucks until the Northwestern Pacific Railroad was embargoed and shut-down from Willits to the California Northern Railroad and Union Pacific mainline connection near the SF Bay Area. By 1996, before the NWP embargo, CWR lumber shipments were less than 500 cars per year and passenger service became the line's main source of revenue. All freight service was discontinued in 2001. Today the passenger excursion trains are the railroad's sole source of revenue. Freight traffic is likely to restart in 2014 as the NWP is being re-opened. Occasionally, the CWR stores equipment or runs special trains on NWP trackage.
Read more about this topic: California Western Railroad
Famous quotes containing the words freight and/or traffic:
“People that make puns are like wanton boys that put coppers on the railroad tracks. They amuse themselves and other children but their little trick may upset a freight train of conversation for the sake of a battered witticism.”
—Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (18091894)
“Cry;and upon thy so sore loss
Shall shine the traffic of Jacobs ladder
Pitched betwixt Heaven and Charing Cross.”
—Francis Thompson (18591907)