Lakeside Subdivision

This article is about a subdivision of the BNSF railway. For the similarly named subdivision of the Union Pacific Railroad, see Lucin Cutoff.

The Lakeside Subdivision is a railway line in eastern Washington running about 149.4 miles (240.4 km) from Sunset Junction, west of Spokane to Pasco. It is operated by BNSF Railway and is considered part of the Northern Transcon.

v t e Lakeside Subdivision[1]
Legend
to Spokane Subdivision 1.1 Sunset Junction Jct. Columbia River Subdivision 9.3 Marshall Jct. Washington and Idaho Railway Jct. Union Pacific 11.8 Lakeside Jct. 15.0 East Cheney[2] 16.6 Cheney 19.8 Babb 29.7 Fishtrap 29.7 [2] 42.4 Sprague 51.1 Keystone 57.8 Tokio[2] 64.9 Ritzville 69.3 Essig 72.5 Paha 80.5 Lind 84.9 Sand 90.8 Beatrice 97.7 Cunningham 101.0 Hatton 109.7 Connell 114.9 Cactus 118.2 Mesa 126.3 Eltopia 137.0 Glade 145.6 Pasco Pasco Station Amtrak Empire Builder[3] 147.5 SP&S Junction Jct. Fallbridge Subdivision Jct. Yakima Valley Subdivision

The line is used by the Portland section of Amtrak's Empire Builder.

History

The line originated from the former Spokane, Portland and Seattle Railway and former Northern Pacific Railway.

To accommodate growing rail traffic throughout the Northwest Transcon, BNSF has been expanding^[when?] rail sidings into expanded sections of double track. This includes a 4.5-mile (7.2 km) section of track that expanded the siding in Tokio to Ritzville.^[4][2]