At Spokane (MP 71.5), where there are crossovers and the passenger station is on the north side of the track with the depot at street level below the elevated platforms, the line is 25 mph Double Track (DT), ABS, Occupancy Control System (OCS), and runs west-east on the elevated formation. This is the former Northern Pacific line and station, with both the ex-Great Northern and UP stations and the lines through them having closed in the 1970s to permit the Spokane Exposition to be built in their place. BN inherited duplicate lines between Spokane and Sandpoint, and chose the ex-NP line to go forward with. The line turns just north of east through the station, then east where a connection from the GN station once trailed in from the northwest, and just north of east again where a GN line south to the Palouse once crossed. There is a small yard on the north side of the line at Erie Street, crossovers at Napa Street (MP 69.7), and various connections at UP Connection (MP 69.3), once known as Napa Street Junctions, with a line southeast to UP's Spokane yard, the start of the UP-owned Spokane International headed east-northeast, and the former GN Kettle Falls line trailing in from the northwest.
The major BNSF yard in the Spokane area is on the north side of the tracks at Yardley (MP 68.1), 3.4 miles east of Spokane, where the speed limit has risen to 35 mph, and the line then passes some industiral spurs on the south side of the line, and the east end of the yard at Parkwater (MP 68.1), where control changes to Two Main Tracks, CTC and the speed limit rises to 79-60. The line passes Millwood (MP 54.3), bridges over the UP (SI) line, passes a spur on the north side at Irvin (MP 63.3), where the line reduces to single track, CTC, bridges over the Spokane River, passes Trentwood (MP 61.7), and turns east past Velox (MP 60.7), where a spur on the south side serves Kaiser Aluminium, a detector at MP 60.1, and spurs to the Spokane Industrial Park on the south side of the track.
The line turns east-northeast past Otis Orchards (MP 58.9), where Two Main Tracks begin again, and then northeast into Idaho, past the wye on the south side at Hauser Junction (MP 51.5) where the line to Coeur d’Alene heads away to the southeast, past West Hauser (MP 49.7), the four-track (three mainline plus one for light engines) on-line fuel rack and the yard on the south side of the tracks at Hauser (MP 47.0), East Hauser (MP 45.6), East Rathdrum (MP 44.6), where the speed limit s briefly 60 mph as the 2MT reduce to single track, CTC, and where the Milwaukee Road's Pacific Extension once passed beneath, a detector at MP 41.2, Ramsey (MP 37.7), Athol (MP 33.5), where the speed limit is briefly 70-60 as Two Main tracks begin again, a bridge over the UP (SI), where the line turns north, east, north-northeast to Granite, where two different previous alignments of the NP, one on the south side and one on the north side, trail in, and northeast past detectors at MP 24.2, north past crossovers at CP 223 (MP 22.3), just east of north past Cocolalla (MP 16.4), where single track begins again, a lake on the west side of the line, West Algoma (MP 14.1), at the north end of the lake, where 2MT begin again, with a speed limit of 70-60, and detectors at MP 11.7.
The line turns east-northeast past Algoma (MP 10.1) and Sagel, and north-northeast apst detectors at MP 8.5) and East Algoma (MP 5.1), where the line reduces to single track again, and the speed limit drops to 50-45 for the causeway/trestle west-northwest across Lake Pend Oreille, and a turns north into Sandpoint (MP 3.0), where the speed limit is 35 mph, continuing past a detector at MP 0.8 to Sandpoint Junction (MP 0.0), where the former NP line now owned by Montana Rail Link turns away northeast, a connection to the UP (SI) line continues straight ahead, and the BN-built connector over to the ex-GN line turns away west-northwest.