Donner Pass

For the past couple days, ever since I finished my Three-Stooges DVDs, I have been viewing a DVD of Southern Pacific Railroad’s crossing of Donner Pass.
It’s an old Video-Rails video. Video-Rails tanked long ago, and was bought out by Pentrex, the premier producer of train-videos, and I am a long-time customer. This was despite Video-Rails producing some incredibly good stuff, although their announcing was overdone.
I still think Pentrex’s first video was their best — it has pacing of the old Santa Fe Railroad along parallel Cajon (“ka-HONE”) Boulevard, plus cab-ride footage of Tehachapi (“Tuh-HATCH-uh-pee”).
The video is early ‘80s: Cajon Pass and Tehachapi Loop — part of the reason I’ve been to both places. (Both are railfan pilgrimage stops.)
Southern Pacific is no more. It was taken over by Union Pacific Railroad. But the video is old enough to be Southern Pacific.
Donner Pass is an incredible railroad; part of the original Transcontinental. It was built by Central Pacific, which was taken over by Southern Pacific. (Union Pacific was the eastern half of the Transcontinental, so now it operates the entire line.)
Donner is a very difficult route east from Californy, but less likely to be storm-damaged than the easier Feather River route, later used by Western Pacific (taken over by UP, to ease access to San Francisco).
Donner is a pass through the Sierra Nevada mountains, named after the infamous Donner party who stalled there in a blizzard in 1846, and had to resort to cannibalism. It also is the route of Interstate-80.
The climb to Donner Summit, 7,017 feet above sea-level, is horrible: mile after mile (105 miles) of continuous 2.4% grade (although it eases to 2% toward the top) — comparable to Baltimore & Ohio Railroad’s dreaded West End, B&O’s original line to the Ohio River.
In fact, B&O’s West End was used as a standard for comparing construction of the original Transcontinental.
No impossible grades. The West End was challenging, but not impossible.
Theodore Judah laid out the Donner Pass crossing, and across the Sierra Nevadas.
Up and up it goes — a 7,000+ foot climb — twisting and turning through tight clearances, just like B&O’s infamous Seventeen-Mile Grade.
Donner also gets incredible weather; huge snowstorms from the Pacific.
One of these snowstorms is what snowbound the Donner party. It also marooned a premier Southern Pacific passenger-train (“The City of San Francisco”) January 13, 1952.
There was so much snow the railroad had to cover much of the line with snowsheds.
Snow-removal is a gigantic winter-long effort. Sometimes the drifts are deep enough to drag out the rotary; a giant snow-thrower — although it ain’t like the typical snowblower. It doesn’t use rotating horizontal tines to move the snow toward an impeller.
Instead it has a huge railroad-wide rotating chew-disk that chews through drifts and throws the snow 150-200 feet. It leaves behind a channel through the snow a railroad-train can negotiate.
(Ya don’t see rotaries much any more. The snow can usually be managed by lesser equipment. But when drifts tower to 12 feet or more, the rotary gets dragged out. —Donner may be the only place ya need ‘em.)
Snow-fighting technology has gotten better, reducing the need for snowsheds.
Some are left, but are concrete. The first ones were wood, and could catch fire.
Even the roundhouse and turntable at the summit (Norden) had to be built under snowsheds.
Sadly, I’ve never been to Donner. Tried in the ‘80s, but missed — used a scenic-route that wasn’t Donner or even Feather River. It would be hard to view; Interstate-80 is often in a different location. I have topo maps, but no Jeep.

“Santa Fe Railroad” equals AT&SF (Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe), the main route into southern Californy. Not too long ago it merged with Burlington Northern Railroad, becoming Burlington Northern Santa Fe (BNSF).

“Cajon (“Ka-HONE”) Pass” is where the Santa Fe railroad came down out of the high desert into the Los Angeles basin. It’s a pass through the San Bernardino Mountains. I-15 to Las Vegas also uses it.

“Tehachapi (“Tuh-HATCH-uh-pee”) Pass” was originally Southern Pacific Railroad. At the south end of the mighty San Joaquin valley, that splits Californy, are the Tehachapi Mountains. No one thought a railroad would ever be built through Tehachapi Pass, linking the San Joaquin with the high desert above Los Angeles, but in 1874-1876 a railroad was built up the mountains — so difficult it required a loop over itself at one point (Tehachapi Loop). The grade is 2.5% (quite steep), and there are many tunnels and sharp curves.

“Seventeen-Mile Grade” is a 17-mile-long westbound grade on the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad, up and into the Allegheny Mountains. It’s quite steep, and has very tight clearances. It’s out in the middle of nowhere. Carved out of a mountainside that likes to wash out. (I’ve seen it; it’s a railfan pilgrimage stop.)