Bennett Brothers has never worked that hard to re-open the line. BNSF and UP pays the extra to truck the product to Spokane for transshipment. It is cheaper for them to pay for trucking than it is to do interchange work. It is just like that for wheat, truck the wheat to a shuttle loading site where unit trains can load. They get all the profit. You cannot afford to rebuild/maintain 100s of miles of track that was worn out when it was turned over to the state 40+ years ago. All for the potential of 100 cars a year. I have traveled these lines for the last 30 years, from day one, all the rail needed upgrading and there wasn't a good tie in 1000 ties. For all this time, there has never been enough traffic to do more than spot repair. If the lines were profitable, you would never have seen all the turnover in operations.
As for snow plows, WSDOT only does state highways. Secondary roads are the responsibility of the counties of Eastern Washington who for years tries to shuffle off that work on the state. It is now time for the counties to step up and pay their fair share.