Bruce, SP&S could have created their own headache with HOW they carved their way east out of Turnbull down thru the ledges down to Fishlake? (Water will always take the path of least resistance!) Where as NP (excuse the pun) "made their bed" when they preferred to follow the coulee from Hatton down to Connell. We keep talking about those "once in a hundred year" storms...sooner or later those Las Vegas odds turn and bite you in the butt. I don't recall any complications that came about in those first few miles of the SP&S, and then as we discussed, the next problem might be landslide potential when you get down to the Snake river. I do remember when BN would use an extra pony to get out of Spokane, and set it out on the west end of Scribner, before proceeding down the SP&S...oddly enough, I often doubted that HP hours were taken into consideration when they contemplated abandoning that line...