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The Lakeside Subdivision is a railway line in eastern Washington running about 149.4 miles (240.4 km) from Sunset Junction, West of Spokane to Pasco. It is operated by BNSF Railway and is considered part of the Northern Transcon.
The line is used by Amtrak's Empire Builder's 27 and 28.
History
editThe Lakeside Subdivision railroad line uses the route originally built and completed in 1882 by the Northern Pacific railroad company. After the Burlington Northern merger in 1970, this subdivision utilized the Northern Pacific route in tandem with another originally from the Spokane, Portland and Seattle Railway. The two predominantly single track routes combined to allow for two-way traffic between Spokane and Pasco. In the 1990s, the SPS route was abandoned.[4]
Abandoning the SPS track left BNSF with a single-track rail line that began to struggle with increasing operations capacity. In 2006, BNSF operated an average of 33 trains per day on this line, and another two trains—one in each direction—operated by Amtrak. An additional 11 per day were operated by Union Pacific on select portions of this route with shared trash usage rights.[4] To accommodate growing rail traffic throughout the Northwest Transcon, BNSF has been expanding[when?] rail sidings into expanded sections of double track. This includes a 4.5 mile section of track that expanded the siding in Tokio to Ritzville.[5][6][4]
References
edit- ^ a b c Kelly, Bruce E. (May 8, 2014). "BNSF's best days are just ahead". Railway Age. Retrieved September 28, 2020.
- ^ "Empire Builder Timetable" (PDF). Amtrak. March 16, 2020. Retrieved July 25, 2020.
- ^ BNSF Northwest Division Timetable No. 5
- ^ a b c "Statewide Rail Capacity and System Needs Study" (PDF). Washington State Transportation Commission. May 2006. Retrieved September 29, 2020.
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link) - ^ "BNSF Tokio to Ritzville Double Track". David Evans and Associates Inc. Retrieved September 28, 2020.
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link) - ^ Kelly, Bruce E. (May 8, 2014). "BNSF's best days are just ahead". Railway Age. Retrieved September 28, 2020.
{{cite news}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
External links
editCategory:BNSF Railway lines Category:Rail infrastructure in Washington (state)