Just to clarify a few points:
The D&H may have built the rail line between North Creek and Tahwaus, but they built it for the U.S. Government. The Government owned it until some years after it was taken out of service, at which time the General Services Administration (the U.S. agency responsible for government property) held an auction in Boston. NL Industries (or its successor) bid on the rail line, bidding against a scrap dealer. I don't recall the sale price, but $1.8 million sounds familiar. It may have been lower. NL wanted to preserve the rail line in the event that it once again became economical to operate the mine. The auction didn't take long (perhaps fifteen minutes?), but the mine manager told me it was the longest fifteen minutes of his life.
By this time, mining and processing operations at Tahawus had been suspended for several years. However, there was still a large quantity of processed material on the ground and every once in a while a tractor trailer load of it would be shipped out, I believe to some facility in Pennsylvania.
There is still a huge quantity of unprocessed ore on the ground at Tahawus, perhaps several million tons. The reason the operation was shut down, I was told by the facility manager, was that there were other, more economical sources of titanium dioxide available, thus making Tahawus uneconomical.
I'm thinking that they stopped shipping by rail from Tahawus in 1988, though I'm not entirely sure. They had stopped mining some time before that, perhaps as early as 1985, shipping out what was processed and stored on the ground.
The NL business represented a significant portion of D&H income. I was told by the president of the railroad company-during-bankruptcy that at the time rail shipments ceased, NL's business had comprised nine percent of D&H revenue. The same year that the D&H lost the NL business, Ford Motor Company switched to tri-level auto carriers, which couldn't fit through the Hoosac Tunnel on the B&M. The Ford traffic, of course, came to the B&M from the D&H. That meant that the Ford traffic, which comprised 11 percent of D&H revenue, was shifted over to Conrail. So, in one year, the D&H lost 20 percent of its business!
It's interesting that, while this 20 percent loss in business probably contributed to the D&H bankruptcy, it is not specifically mentioned in the bankruptcy trustee's report.