[redacted]

[redacted]

I'm not so sure. The Temples are not nice folks to deal with. They have succeeded in destroying a rail operation that rose up to rebuild business on a line that the Temples offered up for abandonment years earlier. Greed and a little "cooperation" from the Yakima County commissioners perhaps.

More info here:http://www.nprymuseum.org/

It's curious though that with the terrible bad traffic in the Renton - Bellevue I-405 corridor that there aren't more folks interested in preserving this ROW for the future. More than a little short-sighted I think.

Scott

There are plenty of folks interested in saving the corridor, and for that matter there are folks interested in using it now, or in the very near future. Anyone who's driven I-405 at rush hour knows that a commuter train would be a useful addition. No, it wouldn't make a huge difference, but it would help.

I suspect there's more to this story than meets the eye. They've been talking about abandoning this line for quite a few years now. Many of the politicians are convinced it needs to go away, just like line along Lake Sammamish.

The problem is that this line runs through some of the most expensive real estate in the state of Washington. There's a lot of rich folks who have stinky, dirty, ugly, smelly trains running through their million dollar backyards. They tend to not like that idea.

The line also has some nice property holdings in Bellevue. I have a suspicion that somehow at least some of that land will become high priced office building and condos. Funny how stuff like that works.

We've been talking about this quite a lot over at railroadforums.com

http://www.railroadforums.com/forum/sho ... hp?t=16713

http://www.railroadforums.com/forum/sho ... hp?t=14753

http://www.railroadforums.com/forum/sho ... hp?t=16757