Spokane Rail Trails

As the weather has been warming I've been getting out and exploring paths and trails around Spokane. I have a special attraction to trails that were once railroads, but it's been a bit hard finding exactly where those are. The Rails-to-Trails Conservancy has a nice database of trails called TrailLink but it only includes developed, often paved, trails. It also includes an entire trail even when only a small section of it might be former railroad, for example, all 37.5 miles of the Centennial Trail through Spokane are included even though less than two miles of the trail (by my count) is actually on former roadbed. What I'm interested in is finding those segments of trails where you are on the preserved road bed.

A segment of the Centennial Trail along the north side of Spokane Falls College, on a roadbed built by the Seattle, Lake Shore & Eastern Railway in 1888. It was then used by Great Northern Railway from 1892–1902 before being abandoned.

Unable to find a good source, I decided to build one myself called Rail Trails in Spokane County. I'm building it in Google Maps and it is public now, although still very much a work in progress. Over time I will continue to annotate the lines on the map and include more history and context as well as pictures I've take when walking along each trail.

Spokane has a long and complex railroad history and I'm not going to get into that in detail in this blog as there are entire books written on the topic. But one thing of relevance to this blog post is the profound change to railroads in Spokane that occurred due to the creation of Burlington Northern in 1970. When the three big Spokane railroads—Northern Pacific, Great Northern, and the Spokane, Portland & Seattle—became one big railroad, the new Burlington Northern found itself with an excess of track miles, routes and facilities. They underwent a massive line relocation project to consolidate all the traffic into a single route through downtown Spokane. This project included the massive new Latah Creek bridge, relocation of about six miles of former Great Northern Track, and multiple other bridges and track realignments which went into use in 1973. And as the Union Pacific had trackage rights over the new BN bridge, they abandoned their line west of Spokane. Near downtown all of the newly available land has been redeveloped over time. But west of downtown, where development has been much slower, a lot of the abandoned mileage is still visible.

Below are some photos from various rail trail visits in the past few weeks. Refer to my rail trails map if you're curious where they are.

Former Great Northern route through Riverside State Park. This is an amazing trail but isn't maintained so it doesn't show up on many maps. This was built in 1892 and used up until 1973. The grade is fairly steep here (for trains, not for walking) and there are dramatic cliffs on one side and a steep drop off on the other with beautiful views.

Another view from the former Great Northern route, looking back toward downtown Spokane in the distance.

There are occasional remnants of former railroad structures along the trail.

This detail from a 1901 USGS topographic map shows the Great Northern crossing the Spokane River north of Ft. Wright. This bridge and the track into Spokane were built by the Seattle, Lake Shore & Eastern and was then used by Great Northern from 1892–1902. The first picture in this blog post is along this segment of track. The Great Northern track started just beyond Ft. Wright

This detail from a 1975 USGS topographic map shows both past and present railroads. I've highlighted in blue the SLS&E route built in 1888. Highlighted in yellow is the Great Northern built in 1892 (up to the SLS&E) and 1902 (the segment to the south). Highlighted in pink is the new Burlington Northern route build in 1973.

This is a view of a BNSF double stack train headed uphill (westbound) on the rerouted Great Northern line built in 1973. In the foreground the locomotives are starting across the Indian Canyon bridge. The tail end of the train is still crossing the Latah Creek bridge.

Fish Lake Trail is on top of the roadbed originally built in 1914 by the Oregon, Washington Railway & Navigation Co., a subsidiary of Union Pacific. This route was abandoned in 1973 as UP had trackage rights over the new Burlington Northern bridge over Latah Creek. The first nine and a half miles of roadbed south of Latah Junction have been paved and turned into Fish Lake Trail.

Another view of Fish Lake Trail. There are plenty of beautiful road cuts like this one. The trail is sandwiched in between two active BNSF lines so there is a high likelihood of seeing trains when on this trail.

I took this picture just this morning looking west across Latah Creek Valley. In the foreground is a unit oil train (empties) heading east on the original Northern Pacific route, crossing Latah Creek on a Warren truss deck bridge built in 1920. In the background a pair of UP locomotives are heading uphill (west) on the old Spokane, Portland & Seattle route. Today BNSF primarily uses the old NP route for eastbound traffic and the old SP&S route for westbound. It's hard to make out the old OWR&N route so I've drawn in a thin yellow line approximately where the Fish Lake Trail is, at this point just downslope from the SP&S line.

Latah Creek Junction looking east. Here is where westbound traffic splits between the old Great Northern route to the west (to Stevens Pass) or the old SP&S route to the southwest (to Pasco). This photo was taken while standing on Fish Lake Trail.

The former Great Northern branch at Latah Junction. Spokane does not have an official train viewing park but if it did have one it would be here. All the land around this junction is either owned by the city or by the railroad. I noticed that some of the parcels around here still list the original railroads, like SP&S, as the parcel owner on county records. BNSF likely assumed ownership, although it's possible some parcels may have reverted to the city after tracks were abandoned. 

This trail on the Gonzaga University campus is on a causeway built by the OWR&N. Spokane River is on the left; on the right is a former bay of the river that was cut off to form a pond called Lake Arthur.

The Don Kardong Bridge connects the Gonzaga University and Washington State University campuses across the Spokane River. It bridge was built by Great Northern in 1926 to replace an earlier bridge built in 1892. The bridge was abandoned by Burlington Northern in 1973 and then converted to pedestrian use in 1988.

And the final picture for today is a view of the Iron Bridge from the bridge deck. This is a triple intersection Warren truss bridge built across the Spokane River in 1902 by the Oregon, Washington Railway & Navigation Co. and is considered one of the most historically significant bridges in Spokane County. It was abandoned by Union Pacific in 1973 and converted for pedestrian use in 2012.