Re: Question for Bruce Kelly
Author: Bruce Kelly
Date: 12-31-2007 - 07:17
At the time of that article, the depot was typical BN white and green. It's still there, but it's current colors escape me. For a few years, it was occupied by a business called the "Pasty Depot," a pasty being some sort of pizza pocket/pastry concoction. Haven't noticed what, if anything, is going on there now. The building is sandwiched between Northwest Blvd. and the three or four remaining tracks, just about across the street from the Spokesman-Review's big brick building. If my article referred to it as a "freight depot," perhaps the term "depot" or "office" would have been a bit more accurate. I don't believe any sizable freight was transferred through that building, since it rests above track level and did not have the size or configuration for handling it. Don't know the heritage of the depot, but if it dates back to GN, it looks modern enough to have been latter-day GN. You're sharp, Eric, to even pick GN. Most people are misled into believing everything on the current branch is ex-NP because the branch comes off the ex-NP main line, and because so many books on BN, MILW, and other railroads in the Northwest have mistakenly said the GN and MILW branches were completely discarded and only the NP was kept. If BNSF were running into CdA on the ex-NP, it would be crossing Northwest Blvd. up near the new Riverstone development, crossing U.S. 95 near the Kootenai Medical Center, and then dropping south into town on street trackage to arrive at the brick depot now occupied by the Las Palmitas restaurant on 3rd and Lakeside.