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Submitted For Your Approval - Eleventh Installment
Author: D.B. Arthur
Date: 03-14-2022 - 00:12
Here's another picture you can't get anymore. On July 05, 1992, I was on the last day of a nine-day High Iron Travel special train comprised of seven privately-owned passenger cars and our trip started in Minneapolis and ended in Spokane. We ran via the route of the old "Soo Dominion" passenger train as far as Moose Jaw, SK where we deviated off the mainline and ran through Assiniboia and Meyronne, re-joining the mainline at Swift Current. From there we went to Medicine Hat, AB, backtracked to Dunmore and proceeded west to places like Corbin, Fording, Golden, Kimberley, Slocan City, Robson West and Warfield. Then we backtracked to Yahk and went down to Kinsgate, BC/Eastport, ID and took the Spokane International route of the UP to Spokane.
The photo shows our train traveling through downtown Sandpoint on a segment of track that has since been abandoned. The Spokane International ran right through downtown Sandpoint with the mainline running right alongside a busy street for several blocks. UP made an agreement with BN and, by using a rehabilitated transfer track between the ex-SI and the ex-GN, plus the use of some of the ex-GN mainline on the western side of the city, the SI running through downtown was then abandoned and turned into a trail. The UP had a small station near the intersection of Cedar Street and North Fifth Avenue that you can see in the picture. Here's a GOOGLE Streetview image of that area and what it looks like today. The fenced parking lot where all of the white vehicles are parked is the location where the station used to be. The asphalt pathway on the far right is where the track used to be.
In the 1992 photo, there's a pink building that has the word "motorcycles" painted on it in big block letters. In the current GOOGLE pic it's lettered "surplus". A lot of changes in the thirty years since the photo was taken and I'll bet a lot of the current residents of Sandpoint have no idea that a railroad once ran through this area.
A special thanks to Clark Johnson and Nona Hill for working their magic in making all of those High Iron Travel trips a reality. They were expensive (chartering trains always is), but they were worth every penny.
[goo.gl]
The photo shows our train traveling through downtown Sandpoint on a segment of track that has since been abandoned. The Spokane International ran right through downtown Sandpoint with the mainline running right alongside a busy street for several blocks. UP made an agreement with BN and, by using a rehabilitated transfer track between the ex-SI and the ex-GN, plus the use of some of the ex-GN mainline on the western side of the city, the SI running through downtown was then abandoned and turned into a trail. The UP had a small station near the intersection of Cedar Street and North Fifth Avenue that you can see in the picture. Here's a GOOGLE Streetview image of that area and what it looks like today. The fenced parking lot where all of the white vehicles are parked is the location where the station used to be. The asphalt pathway on the far right is where the track used to be.
In the 1992 photo, there's a pink building that has the word "motorcycles" painted on it in big block letters. In the current GOOGLE pic it's lettered "surplus". A lot of changes in the thirty years since the photo was taken and I'll bet a lot of the current residents of Sandpoint have no idea that a railroad once ran through this area.
A special thanks to Clark Johnson and Nona Hill for working their magic in making all of those High Iron Travel trips a reality. They were expensive (chartering trains always is), but they were worth every penny.
[goo.gl]
Submitted For Your Approval - Eleventh Installment