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The Great Northern Railroad
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[quote]QUOTE: <i>Originally posted by Murphy Siding</i> <br /><br />futuremodal: I've been reading up on the BN components,and ran accross something that puzzles me. NP had lines into Pasco, Washington and Portland,Oregon. Great Northern had a line into Portland as well. Why would NP,GN and the *Hill Influences* need to build the SP&S?. Wouldn't it have been easier to extend the NP from Pasco to Portland, without duplicating the line from Spokane to Pasco? It seems NP could have done this on their own, and left GN out? <br />[/quote] <br /> <br />Michael summed it up pretty well. It should also be noted that NP <i>had</i> it's original mainline into Portland via Henry Villard's OR&N. So NP's original route to the Puget Sound was via Portland. When the Villard financial house collapsed, NP decided that it better build it's own line to the coast, and commenced on the "Cascade Branch" up the Yakima Valley and over Stampede Pass to the Sound. I can't remember all the details, but I believe at this point the Harriman interests took control of the OR&N through the Columbia River gorge, and at that point the NP was out and UP in. <br /> <br />So why didn't the NP just build on the North Bank of the Columbia River instead of going over Stampede after the Villard collapse? I do not know. It could be that they already had plans for the Cascade branch and just decided to make that the new mainline to the coast. <br /> <br />So why didn't GN build on the North Bank instead of building over that horrible Stevens Pass route? I do not know. Perhaps John Stevens thought he could find an easy direct route to the Puget Sound. <br /> <br />It is easy to surmise that both the NP's "Cascade Branch" and GN's Steven's Pass lines were a tremendous waste of capital, given the the North Bank was just sitting there unused. Same can be said for their collective ignorance of Snoqualmie Pass, clearly the best crossing of the Cascades by far. If not the North Bank, then at least take Snoqualmie!
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