| Woodinville Subdivision |
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ROUTE The railroad begins in Renton and runs north along the shore of Lake Washington through Bellevue and several smaller cities before reaching its northern Terminus in the small city of Snohomish . It was completed more than a century ago and is still used daily by local Freight Trains and until recently, the Spirit of Washington Dinner Train , a popular and profitable Tourist Attraction . However, the Spirit of Washington's current contract to use the railroad ended on July 31 2007 and efforts to renew it have not been successful to date. {Link without Title} The railroad is mostly Single Track ed with a few Passing Sidings to allow trains to pass each other and Spurs for local industries. There is also a branch line from Woodinville to downtown Redmond , which is a remnant of a former main line to the East. A major feature of the railroad is the spectacular Wilburton Trestle , which was originally constructed in 1904 and is the longest wooden trestle currently in use in the Northwest. USES The line is primarily used for local freight traffic, but Boeing uses the line to deliver 737 Fuselage s to its Renton plant from its supplier in Wichita, Kansas , Spirit AeroSystems . The line also serves as a bypass during outages for the only other north-south rail route between the Cascade Mountains and Puget Sound , the Seattle Subdivision, which runs through downtown Seattle. The line is also used by trains whose loads are too bulky to fit through the century old Great Northern Tunnel that runs under Downtown Seattle . However, when the line is used as a bypass, its sharp curves, At-grade Street Crossing s, and poor condition requires trains to keep speeds to no more than 30 Mph . After a rainstorm washed out part of the Seattle line in 1997, a freight train derailed navigating the line as a bypass. {Link without Title} PROPOSED SALE AND DISMANTLING In 2003, BNSF announced that it was looking to sell the line because of declining freight revenues and rising maintenance costs. King County , in which the southern half of the line is located, is currently negotiating for the purchase of the railroad for the stated purpose of keeping the right of way intact for possible future transit use but replacing most of the track with a bicycle trail. There is widespread public support for preventing the right of way from being sold off piecemeal. However, there is growing opposition to the plan to dismantle the railroad and replace it with a bicycle trail. This is a result of concern about the economic harm from the loss of the dinner train and freight service and the interest in using the railroad to create a Commuter Rail connecting east King County cities that are currently only serviced by Bus es and the heavily congested I-405 freeway. Another reason for the opposition to replacing the tracks by a trail is that it would involve an expenditure of approximately $66 million of public funds at a time when the County has been closing parks because it claims that it has insufficient funds to keep them open. Moreover, most of the right of way is about 100 feet wide, which is more than sufficient for both the tracks and a trail. EXTERNAL LINKS |
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