Western Railroad Discussion > Eye of Newt and Toe of Frog (Donner Style)

Trouble is still on the boil up here on Donner. 
There seemed to be a window of opportunity this morning to sneak down The Hill for groceries and whatnot as it hadn't snowed too much during the night, so there wasn't an immediate need to shovel.  So I took off down to Auburn.  When I went into the grocery it had begone to rain.  When I came out- it was snowing.  In Auburn!  Rut-Roe...
I-80 had quickly closed at Applegate, so I took to the local back road.   It didn't take long till I stumbled into a mess of cars aimed in all sorts of random directions, both on and off the road!  Jeez.  I sat in the middle of peoples pathetic attempts to "get it together".  After about 45min two CHP cars showed up.  They immediately set to pulling people out of their cars, shooting them, and shoving their cars into the woods.  Brutal, but in no time I was on my way.
At Gold Run I checked the RR and there was EB UP 6285- the train that had stalled last night!  (1 B/O unit and no sand)  
Some photos:

Photo 1.  The stalled EB UP 6289.
Photos 2&3.  #5, pushing quite a bit of snow (!!) passes the stalled EB.
Photo 4.  Behind #5 was a WB with a bit of foreign flavor leading.

Meanwhile, a single unit had been sent up from Roseville to help the UP 6289 early this morning.  The crossovers at Gold Run had again failed overnight.  MoW was making no attempt to deal with them, so the lone helper was run all the way up to Switch 9 to cross from the 1 Track to the 2 to back down to the stalled EB.  (about a 40mi round trip).  I guess it wasn't an easy trip, backing down the mountain on a track buried in snow for nearly 24hrs!  I found them stopped by my house- they'd met their match only 1 1/2 miles shy of their stalled train: a large tree had fallen across the 2 Track in Dutch Flat.
When I left them they'd backed down to the fallen tree and MoW was trying to get up to the track with a tractor and not having much luck.  They had no chains for the poor thing and it just spun it's wheels helplessly...
It was getting dark.
I went home.
SR

Photo 5.  The helper waiting for help.
Photo 6.  Now down at the fallen tree in Dutch Flat.
Photo 7.  The end loader flopping around it the snow....    sigh.

I'm posting this at 8:30p.  They somehow moved the tree around 6:00p, but the locomotive's crew had died on the law.  The dispatcher got them permission to violate the rules, and move the 1 1/2mi to the train in Gold Run.  I think all of the T&E have died and a fresh crew is on the way up.  I-80 is still closed at Applegate.  The 6289 has been sitting in Gold Run for over 26hrs.
Maybe some Wool of Bat for the Newt & Frog?

BTW:  The promised Flanger & Spreader never made it down this far.

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Great update!

Were things like this 24-hr stalled train bad-crossover-in-the-snow happening even a few years ago on Donner Pass?

Things seem quite different these days. Like something just ain't right.  

Chuck

Holy Cow! Thanks Boiling Man! They are trying their best to recreate the stuck City train of my teen years! Its raining here back east at about 35 degrees but a not much further north its snowing. You can have the snow. I'll be checking out any reports from your altitude. To sound like a complete rail Geek, Rotaries? Actually I could care less! 
Thanks, THANKS!
Gonut

Thanks!
The Snow Crews really set themselves up nicely for this wave of storms. If you go back and look at the aerial photos I took of the recent Rotary trip notice how much room they created around the 2 tracks- it’s a thing of beauty! LOTS of room to shove new snow. I’m not saying to Rotary won’t go out again this season, it very well could- if only for the 222 to finally Do Something!
SR

SR -

You came down the mountain today? Wow. I looked at the Caltrans Quick Map around lunch and there were accidents everywhere between Auburn and Colfax. Locals have not seen snow this low in quite some time. Glad you made it through.

The other wow is Amtrak #5 without a Flanger escort? that is a surprise unless they escorted them to E-Gap and bailed onto the Balloon track.

Happy Shoveling! ;->

Great photos. I have a question concerning snow removal. At what point does snow removal equipment need to be brought out to clear track?  Your photos show trains shoving snow, but when is too much for them to handle?  

Todd Clark
Canyon Country, CA
Trainorders.com

Excellent snow series!!

Larry

These are amazing, entertaining updates.  26 hours, stuck at Gold Run?  It makes you wonder if UP will re-do that installation with switch heaters, or a concrete shed to protect everything from snow.  

But what really, really amazes me is that there are other switches just up the line at Towle (manual) that could be used, but you have to keep them clear.  I have video from days past of SP using them to route trains around work issues or stalls, so in an emergency, they could be used now, but apparently not.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/27/23 22:08 by coach.

Great photos.  It used to be you could take the frontage road and be the only one on it while all the others suckers were stuck on I-80.

webmaster Wrote:
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> Great photos. I have a question concerning snow
> removal. At what point does snow removal equipment
> need to be brought out to clear track?  Your
> photos show trains shoving snow, but when is too
> much for them to handle?  

Just an armchair q-back observer’s remarks:
Under normal circumstances I don’t think you’d see trains shoving snow like today’s 5. But today’s situation was particularly not normal-the combination of a stalled train and an out of service crossover made Donner single track from Colfax to Shed 10. Trying to clear snow and run trains at the same time on a single track?
And do it remotely from over 1000mi away- by folks who quit possibly have never even seen a Donner Winter first hand?
Double Double Toil and Trouble…
Cooking up one ugly stew!
SR

RailDawg Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Great update!
>
> Were things like this 24-hr stalled train
> bad-crossover-in-the-snow happening even a few
> years ago on Donner Pass?
>
> Things seem quite different these days. Like
> something just ain't right.  
>
> Chuck

Nah - These type of things happened before. We just haven't had many bad snow years recently (2011 was the last bad one). 

I can't recall which year but in the late 90's or early 2000's an empty grain train was stranded at Emigrant Gap for a couple of day when the Mountain closed. The train became glued to the rails and MOW crews had to go to a lot of effort to release a couple cars at a time to "unstick" them. 

billmeeker Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Great photos.  It used to be you could take the
> frontage road and be the only one on it while all
> the others suckers were stuck on I-80.

Not any more. All of the Phone Apps direct vehicles onto side roads regardless of the side road conditions. 

Plus the proliferation of All Wheel Drive vehicles encourage people to drive where they shouldn't drive. People come up to the mountains with AWD and run of the mill M+S rated tires with some tread and end up in a ditch or cause a chain reaction accident.

When I made my run home from Truckee to Sac on Saturday it was snowing and the road was getting nasty and yo yo's were going 80-85 mph by me in the fast lane.   

coach Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
>
> But what really, really amazes me is that there
> are other switches just up the line at Towle
> (manual) that could be used, but you have to keep
> them clear.  I have video from days past of SP
> using them to route trains around work issues or
> stalls, so in an emergency, they could be used
> now, but apparently not.

Towle isn't easy to get to in the winter if there is significant snow fall. The access road from the county road is pretty narly, they would need a snowcat/grader to clear it. 
 

Interesting that the Amtrak units have something hanging down about halfway along the underbody, it seems to be kicking up quite a bit of snow. Can't tell if that's powder snow or heavy wet snow. There was a post by JLY about build up under locomotives and the re-design of the front plow.

The standard of measure seems to be snow above the top of the rail or not, or how much above the top of the rail. Many delays are because of switch points bunching up snow and not reporting as closed. Monitoring the radio, there seems to be a shortage of snow brooms these days.

 



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/28/23 08:13 by TCnR.

I'm happy to hear CHPs metes out swift and certain justice to idiot winter time drivers. We could use some of that around here. d



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/28/23 05:57 by dpudave.

Some one will be forced to deal with the bodies and wrecks when the snow melts

dougd Wrote:
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> Some one will be forced to deal with the bodies
> and wrecks when the snow melts

Bodies won't be a problem, the local critters are pretty efficient at performing their clean up duties.

Nice set SR. I suspect things might be challenging today as well. It does sound like some trains are moving this morning in addition to the snow-fighting equipment, however.

Dan, It's crazy what some of these mapping apps will tell people to do. I've seen Google suggest that I take Soda Springs Rd up from or down to Auburn when 80 has been closed in the winter. (It's a single lane dirt Forrest Service road once past Serene Lakes that isn't plowed or passable until summer.) That'd be a fantastic way to get stuck in the middle of nowhere with no cell service and no one coming by. Perhaps they think I'm on a snowmobile. That's what it would take to make it up to Soda Springs, as the road coming up from the American River is under 15-20 feet of snow right now.

I've lamented the loss of some of my favorite back roads over Donner Pass to traffic because of Google and Waze. I figured things out when I moved here 20 years ago with a Subaru wagon and a DeLorme atlas.

donner_dude1 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> billmeeker Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > Great photos.  It used to be you could take
> the
> > frontage road and be the only one on it while
> all
> > the others suckers were stuck on I-80.
>
> Not any more. All of the Phone Apps direct
> vehicles onto side roads regardless of the side
> road conditions. 
>
> Plus the proliferation of All Wheel Drive vehicles
> encourage people to drive where they shouldn't
> drive. People come up to the mountains with AWD
> and run of the mill M+S rated tires with some
> tread and end up in a ditch or cause a chain
> reaction accident.
>
> When I made my run home from Truckee to Sac on
> Saturday it was snowing and the road was getting
> nasty and yo yo's were going 80-85 mph by me in
> the fast lane.