The dark gravel is where there used to be a switch with a track curving to the right. That curving track was the main line of The Milwaukee Road between Seattle/Tacoma and Chicago. From this Renton site the main line entered the valley of the Cedar River and followed the river to Maple Valley, then continued to Hyak (near Snoqualmie Pass), Ellensburg, Othello, Butte, St. Paul, Milwaukee, and Chicago. Now an asphalt walking/bike trail occupies the former right-of-way as far as Landsburg, Washington. several miles beyond Maple Valley.

The track going over the bridge no longer exists. In 2008 it was replaced by a low, sterile, concrete affair that accommodates long 737 fuselages that are shipped by rail from Wichita, Kansas to Boeing's Renton plant for final assembly.

I miss The Milwaukee Road, as boxcars on its freight trains carried me from Seattle to Chicago in 1968 and from Seattle to Milwaukee in 1969.