Courtesy of Tom Carver.
October 1980
"The westbound Central Washington, or CW, local ran from Spokane to Coulee City, WA, on the ex-NP branch of the same name. Out one day and back the next, it is seen here westbound at Marshall, WA., in October, 1980. Enough upgrades to the branch were finished by the following year to replace the classic 40-foot grain boxes with 100-ton covered hoppers, and would also be the last year for the Parkwater (Spokane) based F-unit fleet. It is shown here rolling over the former NP mainline from Spokane to Seattle, prior to entering the branch at Cheney. The track in the foreground was the joint Milwaukee Road/Union Pacific main and the track up on the hillside was the former SP&S line to Pasco. At one time there was an NP interlocking and tower here at the end of double track west of Spokane, located behind the last boxcars visible through the overpass."
5 comments:
Beautiful shot of my favorite F units! I've ridden my bike thru Marshall on the SPS trail but it was difficult to tell after the end of the Columbia Plateau Trail and going into the Fish Lake Trail, whose tracks were whose. The UP/Milw, NP and SPS tracks seem to crisscross on my maps and difficult to tell. Is the short low bridge over I-90 the SPS or was the the UP/Milw?
Both are still there. The UP one is part of the Fish Lake Trail. The SP&S one seems to be a bridge with nothing connected on either side.
OK. Kind of what I was thinking.
Sorry to drag this on, but the way i see it is the SPS bridge is the one further west that goes over I -90 and wyes into the GN bridge coming in from the north. The NP from Marshall on, dropped into the valley and their bridge is the one that joins in farthest east. It seems to me that they kept the SPS tracks from Fish Lake on east and took out the UP/Milw tracks and gave trackage rights to UP on the old SPS tracks. They're still connected and go over the bridge. BNSF still uses that upper track and joins with the NP main at Fish lake (signpost UP Junction).
You are correct. I do have to wonder why the SP&S bridge has lasted so long.
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