Jason, the branch south out of St. Maries would make a fantastic tourist train ride, but it's my unscientific opinion that two things would work against it: 1) the fact that St. Maries is a bit off the beaten path for much of the region's summer tourism, and 2) there are currently no prominent destinations at the opposite end of the run whether the turnaround point is Santa or Clarkia or Bovill.

A lot of us locals flock to the St. Maries area during summer and fall for camping, fishing, boating, hunting, etc. But those coming to this part of Idaho from far away are mostly drawn to the Route of the Hiawatha trail on the ID/MT border, the Trail of the Coeur d'Alenes between Plummer and Wallace, or the Coeur d'Alene Casino just north of Worley. St. Maries sits roughly between these three attractions, more of a place to stop for gas and ice and maybe a burger than anything else if you're here from California or the East Coast. These days, you'd better have a mighty impressive attraction, and one that's affordable for the whole family, if you're going to get many folks to drive that far off of U.S. 95 or I-90.

The Coeur d'Alene Tribe and the casino operators have made previous gestures of wanting to run some kind of dinner or tourist train on portions of UP's Wallace Sub, which could ferry guests from Spokane to the casino, but nothing solid has transpired. A tourist train from the casino south to Plummer, or from Plummer east to St. Maries, might stand a better chance of doing business than one working the branch south of St. Maries. And while the branch winds through a scenic river canyon with several minor bridges and a tunnel, the main line from Plummer to St. Maries has two large steel bridges, a long pile trestle, a tunnel, a large horseshoe loop, and lofty views down on lakes fed by the St. Joe River.