The Upstate RailConnect Committee will meet hold its meeting in Weaverville on Wednesday, but will do so without a highly-anticipated presentation from Robert Martin.
Martin, a Tehama County business man, sent waves of curiosity and excitement through rail circles last month when he addressed the committee and unexpectedly urged it to back away from its push to fund a public study looking at the feasibility of creating a rail line connecting Humboldt Bay to the Red Bluff area, telling the committee he had already secured private funding for such a study. The committee asked Martin to come back and give a full presentation at its May 7 meeting, when it could be properly agendized and Martin agreed.
But something appears to have come up, as Martin’s presentation was pulled from the agenda for Wednesday’s meeting after Martin contacted the committee and said he would not be attending, according to former Eureka City Manager David Tyson, who represents Humboldt County on the committee.
Calls placed to Martin were not returned by deadline for this story.
To read more about the committee, Martin’s comments last month and the general push for an east-west rail line into Humboldt County, read prior Journal coverage here.
This article appears in Crime Fighters.
The Harbor District has already done a study on the fever dream of east-west rail, and its clear that no private investor in their right mind would lay down billions of dollars on this dumb idea. Let’s just hope that these nutters don’t convince our more credulous elected officials to waste public funds on this thing.
I love rail, however, and if you want to see a project that perhaps just barely has the resources to go forward, with much higher population and economic density to support it, then check out the Sonoma-Marin Area Rail Transit system.
It irks me to see David Tyson come out of retirement so that he can waste yet more of our meager resources on this risible proposal.