Western Railroad Discussion > Lucky Catches on Donner Pass

Spent a great couple of days on "The Hill" this week with my Dad. We spent most of our time at Andover and the Big Hole (aka Tunnel 41, East end of Norden). Here are a couple of pictures.

1st Picture: Caught the cantilever/searchlight signals. Wonder how much longer they have??
2nd Picture: East of Truckee, near Glenshire, along the Truckee River.
3rd Picture: Caught Amtrak Heritage #184 WB at Andover.

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Picture #4: Caught the old CN&W Operation Lifesaver Engine with 3 SP Patched units in the consist. Train was EB heading into the Big Hole, Tunnel 41.
Picture #5: More SP units heading EB. They looked so natural here.
Last Pic: One more going away.

On a side note, I want to say thanks to the UP crews for the friendly waves we saw on almost all the trains and the MOW crews. Seems some times the negative sides come out when it comes to crew/photographer interaction, but we appreciated them very much.

Stay Safe out there!

Jeff
Chico, CA

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That shot of 5 answers a question I had when we went over the hill on the TO trip. The snow pack from last winter at the higher elevations will last clear through to the first snow of this year.

Sharon Evans
Glen Allen, VA

That snow pack is on the ridge just below Tinkers Knob. Most years at this time reveal isolated patches here and there, so this is good testimony to the heavy snowfall of last winter. The background in #2 looks like a model railroad. Thanks for posting this series...nice job Jeff.

Kent in Carmel Valley

Very nice pictures and some fine catches of power you got, must have been a great time! Whats up with the plow on that UP SD70ACE on the second photo, looks like the Amtrak heritage unit has a headlight out too
??

Yellow stripes on a the UP engine snowplow??

SP had it right with their BIG snowplows. I think they need to go back to that design, but they probably won't.