By the early 1990s, finding an active sugar factory in the west that was served by rail was uncommon. The Utah-Idaho Sugar Factory near Nampa, Idaho was operating in business as usual mode in the fall of 1992, as industrial switchers from Porter and GE shuttle hopper car loads of sugar beets over the mill dumper. The Union Pacific who originated this traffic along the Snake River Valley would soon turn its back on U&I, requiring all sugar beets to be hauled from the fields by truck.
