Arcata and Mad River Railroad - End of The Line

End of The Line

Service on the AMR was discontinued in 1983, and the line was abandoned on May 24, 1985. In September 1988 the Eureka Southern Railroad purchased the AMR from Simpson Timber Company for $300,000. The AMR had been closed for the two-year period (1986-1988) prior to its purchase by the Eureka Southern. Service was briefly resumed in 1994 by the North Coast Railroad. Soon afterwards, landslides in the Eel River canyon closed the line, and no rail service has existed since that time. Tracks were torn up with the hopes of rebuilding the line with heavier gauge rail- Derailments were common, and in the last years of its life, the railroad had to use shorter than standard length cars. However, due to the money bleeding operations of the North Coast railroad, the line was never rebuilt. The final series of washouts in 1997 sealed the doomed fate of the A&MR RR, and the northern end of the NWP.