The Sinto Ave. Spur

The Sinto Ave. industrial spur in Spokane was always interesting to me, especially because it was
so close to home and every once in a while I might see a train working the spur.  I seem to
remember a BN switcher crossing Ash St. on the way home from church one Sunday, but the
few other trains I saw were UP. 



The Sinto Spur is visible on this map as a rail line angling toward the northwest, passing south of the old Spokane Coliseum, and then following the east-west alignment of Sinto Avenue before turning northwest again just past A. M. Cannon Park.

One Saturday, probably around ‘78 or ‘79, I convinced a friend to hike with me along the tracks, so I could look at the different freight cars and write down their reporting marks.  In the end, my list of spotted freight cars was about 11 or 12 entries long, so the spur was still pretty busy even at that late date.  I lost the list a long time ago, but I seem to remember a couple UP boxcars spotted at various locations on the spur and a Santa Fe refrigerator car in the Washington St. yard.  Industries I remember along that line included Empire Cold Storage, a fuel dealer, a lumber yard (plus the old lumber mill west of Cannon Park that burned), Western Soap and a couple others where the building is still standing, but I don’t remember what they shipped or received.

When I started riding my bike to Havermale Jr. High, I would sometimes ride along the tracks as far as Cedar St., but had to stop because I kept having thorns puncture my bike tires.  One morning as I walked to school along the tracks – I know I was in 8^th grade, so this must’ve been the Fall of ‘79 or Spring of ’80 – I looked up and saw a UP GP-38-2 coming up the spur to work.  I couldn’t help stopping to watch them drop off and pick up cars (it didn’t take too long, so maybe only one or two cars got handled), and I stuck around until they were done, even though I was already late for school by then.  I did ask the crew for a ride as far as Cedar, but they turned me down.  Still, I was pretty thrilled at having been in the right place and right time to see a train working on the spur.

When I got to school, I went straight to the office to accept whatever punishment was in store for being tardy.  My 1^st Period English teacher (I think her name was Mrs. Elias) happened to be in the office, so she asked me where I’d been.  When I told her about the train, she rolled her eyes and told me to get into class.  There was no tardy slip, and I never heard a thing about it from the school.  Mom found out, and so did Grandpa Brady, either because the school had called her or because I just had to tell her about my cool experience.  Grandpa scolded me a little about school being a higher priority than trains, but I would probably have done it again.  I think I’ve kept my priorities pretty straight over the years, and I've learned that if you generally keep your nose clean, you’re less likely to get in trouble when you do step out of bounds a little.




This is the locomotive in which I got my first cab ride.  Unfortunately, this photo was not taken on the Sinto Ave. Spur, but in Blackfoot, Idaho instead, by Norm Metcalf

One other time, in the Fall of ’80, I got my first cab ride on that spur.  My Scout troop was camping up at Bear Lake as part of a district Camporee, but I had a Saturday AM piano recital.  I camped with the troop overnight, and then Mom & Dad picked me up the next morning.  I came into town, performed in my recital, and then we went home to pick something up before they took me back to camp so I could come home with my troop.  As we were driving north up Maple St., I saw a UP locomotive on the spur.  Dad drove around the block so I could get a closer look.  The engine was stopped just east of Ash as they prepared to move.  I got out of the car to watch, and asked about a cab ride, just as far as Maple (1 block).  They asked if I really meant only one block, then invited me up into the cab.  I sat in the fireman’s seat while they moved to flag for their crossing at Maple, and I climbed right back down – again, pretty thrilled by the experience.  I think three things helped me score the ride this time, I only wanted to ride for a block, my parents were right there watching, and I had a Scout shirt on.

The final time I saw a train on the spur before it was abandoned, was on a Saturday probably in the Fall of ‘83, I think.  My sister and I had been to a North Central H.S. International Club picnic on Mt. Spokane and had returned to the school parking lot to drop off friends that had driven up with us.  On our way home, I saw a train on the spur, pulled by a Western Pacific GP-40 that was assigned to Spokane for a while after the UP/WP merger.  This was cool, because I had Dad’s camera with me!  I took several shots as the train rolled east along the spur.  But, when I got home, I found there had been no film in the camera!