3/28/13
The Times-Standard and various other publications have recently published pieces touting further investigation into the feasibility of a railroad from Humboldt County due east across the Coast Range to the Sacramento Valley floor in the Redding/Red Bluff region. One of the suggestions was that our local economy could be revived by shipping trainloads of bottled water over that route. I write to point out that these authors are missing the most important advantages that could come from a thorough examination of Humboldt's transportation planning and the creation of a new vision.
There are no doubt those who will narrowly claim that building a railroad over a mountain range will be prohibitively expensive. This is in part because they only see the railway as being used for products, bottled water, timber, perhaps gypsum board, that are not high in dollar value. Also they will claim that the difficulty of building a railway, which needs to be more or less flat, will cost many millions of dollars per mile to construct. This naively overlooks the fact that all is being called for now is a study, which can no doubt be performed for only hundreds of thousands of dollars per mile. Much more importantly it fails to comprehend the much greater economic potential available to us if only we have the fearless foresight to grasp that potential.
First, the cost of construction. If the construction methodology is limited to dynamite and diesel, few enduring benefits will accrue.
But if we expand our vision we can vastly reduce the cost of construction and foster a new industry. We must envision the building of the railway atomically. As we develop the skills and technology to use carefully controlled atomic explosives we will find we can create the entire railway virtually without any need to use antiquated machinery such as bulldozers and excavators. The development of this technology will be accompanied by massive growth in the educational infrastructure. Hundreds, perhaps thousands, of high paying nuclear physicist jobs will spring up. It is also highly likely that one spinoff of this effort will be to get back on track the effort to address the too often ignored necessity for nuclear locomotives. And we should not forget that Humboldt has previous experience with nuclear power. Just think about the possibility that we will one day become a convergence of the Scandia laboratories and the Silicon Valley. Drs. Richmond and Eagles may someday soon preside over research and educational institutions rivaling and surpassing Berkeley and Stanford, perhaps justifying their current salaries. The airport will have to be expanded just to handle the importation of child care providers from Northern Europe The College of the Redwoods will be accredited. We will be rich, famous and internationally respected.
But the reality is that no matter how great the eastern demand for bottles of water, board feet of timber, crab legs and hashish, those products alone will not support the railroad. Another enterprise will, and that enterprise will contribute even more to our high tech future. It is not enough to build the railway and revitalize our port.
HUMBOLDT COUNTY MUST BECOME A SPACEPORT! Several times a week rockets carrying communication and observations satellites will be launched from the Arcata Bottom or from New Samoa, or perhaps both. With a little luck and the proper alignment of the stars the first humans to walk on Mars will have departed from behind the Redwood Curtain. The astro- and geo-physics programs at HSU will expand immensely, creating untold wealth and nearly endless demand for au pairs. There will be a huge new Land Rover dealership. Myrtletown may one day be the home of the grandest opera house in the world. We'll get a Home Depot, a Trader Joe's and a Crate and Barrel. The music department at CR will be funded. Fort Humboldt will once again be the most important military installation on the Pacific Coast. And each day sub-assemblies of spacecraft and satellites will flow both east and west on our new railway.
This is a vision that must be brought to life now. Money must immediately start to flow. It may be necessary that, for a short time, a handful of decades, institutions that supply education, law enforcement, administration of justice, perhaps even streets and sewers will have to go on a back burner, but once we get started nothing can stop us. The future is ours to take.
Roy Dahlberg resides in Arcata.
