Since when did the train run all the way from Pasco to Spokane? Ive been on much of the old ROW down in these parts and its far from a paved trail.
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It's a trail from Pasco to Spokane, it's only paved from Spokane to Cheney.
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| Posted by SES on February 17, 2019 | |
My understanding for abandonment was also the maintenance of the several tall steel bridges in the canyon toward the South. Considering the traffic load between Pasco and Spokane, it would have been better to continue running Northbounds on this segment and the southbounds on the former NP. By overloading the NP with the northbound traffic, too, they had to spend millions on passing tracks. And then they created some grueling hill climbs as now the Northbounds would face a long, sharply curved hill south of Lind and then an almost continuous grade from Lind to Ritzville of several miles and then another from Sprague to Cheney. The BNSF merger was a good thing as BN management at the time seemed bent on making poor decisions to abandon trackage at the cost of running efficiency. They were even pulling up sidings in downtown Spokane when bottlenecks and car storage were a real problem.
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