Day 2 - Donner Pass Railfanning

Had a solid evenings sleep and woke up around 8am as my neighbour had a shower, ahh the wonders of cheap motels and noisy plumbing. Got another hours sleep and then did my morning ritual or email checking, route planning, weather forecasting, and car packing. Headed off for Truckee but first stopped at the lake to get a few photos.

Was a nice balmy 3°C down at the lake and it was snowing lightly when I left the motel. I pressed on for Truckee and arrived just in time to see the tail end of a container train scooting through. Never mind, there'll be heaps more, right?

I parked up in Truckee and went for a wander around, admiring such beauties as the Vandura 2500, and the "Jax" Truckee Diner.

I also checked out the recently overhauled spreaders that UP use to keep Donner Pass open during the winter. These are pretty serious pieces of kit with numerous adjustable plows, winterized windows, heating systems, power systems, fully enclosed crew compartments, and so forth. But then Donner Pass is a serious piece of mountain railroading, and getting into trouble is a very real possibility for these crews.

What I did notice was a complete absense of their "snow service" locos. In previous years there have been several such locos standing by fueled up and ready to go, complete with all important inter-loco connections duct-taped together to prevent any mishaps on the hill. But today… nothing at all, in fact Truckee yard is looking positively empty. Says something about the tameness of this winter.

I did however find a rotary snow plow and a railroad crane.

The rotaries almost never get used on Donner Pass, however last year I missed seeing it in actuon by just a week, when they had an absolute monster of a snowfall that completely closed down the Pass. Timing!!

I decided to head on up to the top, but halfway up I spotted a train heading down, so did a U turn and set up an intercept course for Truckee. Soon caught my prey:

Backlight and all but not much I could do about that.

I decided not to chase it and dashed up the hill again. Was looking a little bleak at the top, but was nothing serious. I parked by the Nordon snow sheds and went for a wander. Found a great photo spot but of course there was nothing coming for a while. Went and looked at the snow sheds and found a maintenance crew coming out of one.

The sheds are pretty big and are used to keep snow off the crossovers between the two tracks, as these are liable to get gunged up with snow and freeze in place, making them quite useless. I sat on a rock for a while and got quite warm, despite it only being 4°C. In fact it never got above 6°C all day, yet if anything I was too warm.

I knew the California Zephyr was due through Truckee at 2:37 but I couldn't remember from what direction. Just as I realised that it would be due past me at any time now, I heard it tooting for the Soda Springs crossing just down the road. I sprinted up the hill to my photo spot, which is pretty exhausting in snow and at 7000 ft and with a thick coat on! Got my shot though…

I checked out a few other spots and found a nice stream:

Then I decided to climb a hill which was quite slow going, and while the view was good, the trains were not forthcoming so after a while I gave up and went back down.

Note the lack of snow! Of course the moment I drove off a train roared past so I'd missed it by just a few minutes! I sped up the road to Yuba Gap and got in position for a terrible back-lit photo.

The poor thing was struggling and not making very good speed, so I had no problem getting ahead of it for my next shot, that I hoped would be a nice glint shot. However after 45 minutes of waiting it still hadn't turned up and so I went looking for it, only to promptly miss it! I sped off to Sugar Bowl but was unable to get to the tunnel in time, making it 3 times that the same train had eluded me.

I figured there wouldn't be more trains before it got dark so I went and explored the old tunnel.

It was pretty nippy inside and there were some huge icicles hanging down, and a stream down the middle. The echo was stunning however and went on for ever!

I drove on down to the Lake Donner lookout and had a look around.

The snow sheds, tunnels, and "China Wall" of the old, now bypassed, Donner Pass railroad route.

Down at Truckee all their Christmas tree lights had come on and it was looking quite pretty.

I drove on to Lake Tahoe and stopped at the lake shore for some more photos before I headed to the motel. I didn't have a tripod which made the long exposures lightly more complicated, but nothing a kiwi engineer couldn't solve!

After that it was off to the motel before heading to the local Casino for dinner, this time it was a Surf and Turf with just a measly 7oz/200g steak, compared to yesterday's monster 12oz/350g beast! Then it was back to the motel in the nice fresh 0°C evening air. Tomorrow I plan to start heading for Montana, which will mean mostly Nevada tomorrow. That's ok, I live Nevada, and there is some good easy train chasing to be done out there if you're lucky enough to catch one.