After setting out a few dozen empty grain hoppers and WIR 20 at Spangle, a W&I grain shuttle (with BNSF road power) works southward through the fertile Palouse toward its ultimate destination at Oakesdale. In the dark hours of the following night, the train would be northbound through this same location, returning to the BNSF interchange at Marshall with loads destined for the export dock at Vancouver, WA. It's a credit to the W&I team (for proposing the concept), WSDOT (for providing the funding needed to improve the track structure) and BNSF (for accepting an unusual practice) that the seemingly-crazy concept of breaking up a 110-car unit train amongst a handful of elevators strung out along 36 miles of a shortline, loading all the sections simultaneously, reassembling everything and returning the loaded train to BNSF can be successfully -- and consistently -- accomplished in less than 24* hours.
* - Corrected from 48 hours per Stan's comment; this particular train experienced delay issues beyond the W&I's control.
