Western Railroad Discussion > Getting One Rolling On Donner Summit

I shot this eastbound manifest (MRVGR?) at CP RV193 East Norden on the morning of Friday, July 10, 2026. It had been waiting for the westbound MSPRV to clear the single track Tunnel 41. (I condensed some of the start-up sequence to reduced the total video time, though it's hard to tell with the "dissolve" transitions.)

Cheers,
Sean

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Nice! UP has gotten their act together up on Donner after many incidents I've seen with under powered EB trains.
Those create more dramatic start - ups when some of the units are not working.
Regards, Jim Evans

Some of the trains I was seeing this summer seemed like they were on the smaller side, on average, than what I've generally witnessed in the past few years. Granted, the number of locomotives relative to the weight and length of the train could go up or down, impacting how things get started on the hill, but I was surprised at the number of eastbound manifests I saw earlier this summer without a single DPU. (To the point that I thought it unusual and was wondering if traffic was down over Donner.)

One thing about this particular spot is that a significant portion of the train is on level ground, if, as discussed on this site, the top of the climb eastbound is near the reverse curves just east of the snowshed at West Norden. That spot for the top of the grade is 3/4 of a mile west of the Old Donner Summit Rd grade crossing.

FiveChime Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Nice! UP has gotten their act together up on
> Donner after many incidents I've seen with under
> powered EB trains.
> Those create more dramatic start - ups when some
> of the units are not working.
> Regards, Jim Evans