Trains Keep-a-Rolling

Today I awakened at 7 am sharp and could not go back to bed. Sunday is usually a great day to sleep in but that was not going to occur.

I ended up taking breakfast at The Summit restaurant in Soda Springs at about the 7,000-foot level in the Sierra Nevada mountains. Great breakfast!

I shot some photographs of the Donner Lake area and spied a Union Pacific train heading downhill past Shed 47, which is on the south side of Donner. I shot this next photograph in Norden as the UP train headed downhill in dynamic braking mode.



"Downhill" became a recent issue with another train where two Harsco employees recently lost their lives. I decided I would hike to this spot, to see if I could approach the area for photographs. This decision cost me four hours hiking, 7 miles over rocky ballast, and yielded an area not unlike that of a ghost town.

Two men died here. I could smell the diesel fuel all over. The winds blew and the pines shed their needles. Two light generators sat unattended. Pizza boxes were discarded about. A cardboard box marked "drinking water" sat atop a generator. I afforded myself a few of these bottled waters. Like most derailments I've seen, wheelsets sat pushed aside. At first blush, the train on which they were riding began to accumulate speed downhill and efforts to scrub this speed yielded no results. Perhaps by my accompanying photo you can see that the train derailed to the right on a curve to the left.

Union Pacific managed to re-open the two damaged tracks. The track on the left is the downhill or westbound track. The right track is for uphill traffic. A slow order is in effect for this area.

Of the cars present, I could see that those remaining had burned horribly. Whilst I was examining the wreckage, an eastbound #6 California Zephyr Amtrak passenger train passed at 10 mph under a yellow caution flag.

No doubt, each and every passenger, and every crew member looked closely at the wreckage remaining at this site where, clearly, two persons perished.

Passengers note this with amusement; train crews shake their heads and speculate: could this have been me? What will my family say upon my passing?

UP purposely opens the trackage as quickly as possible so that commerce can continue.

And the trains keep rolling.

BZ