Long summer days combined with SMART curtailing passenger service due to COVID has created a window of opportunity to chase the NWP freight from Ignacio to Petaluma. Normally all this is after dark. The earlier evening departure provides a nice "golden hour" chase, through an area that still has a few dairy ranches, but is becoming increasingly developed. This is one of the few vistas that provides a reasonably untouched view of rolling hills studded with native live oaks, a rather classic coastal California evening vista. Above the hills a finger of coastal fog makes its nightly way inland through the Petaluma Gap. The NWP handles feed grain for mills around Petaluma, as well as grain for Lagunitas brewery, from an interchange with the Cal Northern at Lombard.
