Excerpts From the Northern Pacific Land Grants Hearings before the Joint Congressional Committee on the investigation of the Northern Pacific Land Grants. There were well over 5000 pages.
1925
The tldr: The government was having a problem with the NP getting such a large amount of land by dipping down to Pasco and back up through Yakima, when they could have built what was the Ritzville Ellensburg cutoff instead.
BNSF today woulda' had a nice quick route if this was a done deal back then. May have never mothballed the Stampede Pass route in the early 80's neither, upgraded the line in the 70's and used it for it's main route across Washington, and (gasp!!) downgrade the Stevens Pass line due to the costs of the the tunnel and all them line upgrades they did.
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I do have to wonder how things would be different today.
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