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Having actually gone down and talked to the Spokane Regional Transportation Council located in the top floor of the old NP station downtown, I can answer a most of the questions about the project. [quote]QUOTE: Originally posted by futuremodal Well, it looks as though most of this is still in the preliminary stages, but to take a few website statements at face value.....[/quote] Actually this project has been moving slowly forward for years. Funding has been slow in coming. [quote]QUOTE: So is UP going to have any ownership rights of these new sets of tracks parallel to the current BNSF line? Or is this going to be all BNSF trackage with UP getting overhead rights like they currently do between Fish Lake and Napa? Hmmm, nothing says "out of touch" like making the same mistake twice![/quote] No it will be BNSF ownership, and UP trackage rights. UP will only own their yard and auto facility between Barker and Flora roads. [quote]QUOTE: "The UPRR mainline track needed to maintain service to existing customers will be reclassified to industry track from mainline track." Still not sure if the current UP line will remain intact or have parts torn out. If the former, at least there will be an available rail bypass when the next big catastrophic derailment takes the BNSF main out of service for more than a few hours. If the latter, well, the website further states "Remove a majority of the UPRR mainline and the associated crossings."........[/quote] Parts of the current mainline will remain in place to serve customers at Millwood, Trentwood, Interstate, and Chilco, the rest will be removed. [quote]QUOTE: "Construct a new UPRR Yard" Why would UP need a new Spokane yard? Most of their carload traffic to and from Spokane originates or connects with the current yard site aka the Plummer branch, the East Sprague warehouse district, et al. Where is this new yard supposed to be located? Sounds as if developers are eyeing the Playfair/Avista Stadium area for some upscaling.[/quote] In case you missed it, part of the combined UP-MILW East Spokane yard has been redeveloped as a Home Depot and a Costco. The rest of the yard is on valuable land, and UP wants to sell, and have the new yard more centrally located to their Eastport-Hinkle corridor. The current yard is useless to through trains off the BNSF or coming from Eastport. So UP is forced to run the MSKHK/MHKSK for the small amount of traffic that passes through the East Spokane Yard, whereas traffic at Trentwood/Velox is picked up and dropped by through trains. The Plummer branch will be rerouted up the industrial spur to the Pea and Seed elevator, and a short new connection will be built to connect to the BNSF. [quote]QUOTE: Like I said before, there is nothing germaine to the BNSF line regarding the need for grade separations and closed road crossings that couldn't also be done the UP's line. Build a few road underpasses and overpasses, close down a few of the lesser used road crossings, and there you go. An available high capacity second mainline that UP and BNSF could share for directional or segregated running of mainline freights. And you don't even have to build a second track nor a new Spokane River bridge. Seems to me that would be a less costly solution. But who really cares about costs when it is the taxpayers footing the bill? [/quote] That's because in addition to wanting to eliminate grade crossings, both Idaho and Washington are eyeing the right of way for new highways. Spokane wants to use the UP ROW from Pines Road to Trent Road (west of the SI Yard) as a new parkway that would connected the Valley Mall area to Downtown. Of course SRTC keeps that part of the project quiet to avoid Nimby resistance from the neighborhoods along the route ("If you thought trains were bad, just wait till they put a highway there!"). Idaho wants UP's ROW so that they can build a new highway from Hwy 95 at Garwood to Hwy 43 outside of Post Falls, as a bypass of Hayden Lake and Coeur d'Alene. Something not shown in the drawings on the website (among many things), is the new connection at Millwood to serve the paper mill. A short connection would be built from the exsisting BNSF mainline at a point just east of where the BNSF goes over the UP at Millwood. The connection would drop down to the UP tracks on the south side of the BNSF mainline, and swing under the BNSF mainlines and Trent Road to connect to the UP tracks. A short section of the UP would then be kept to connect with the Paper Mill.
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