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Is old US 40 still open over Donner Pass?

Parts of it are still there, but it might be chopped up as you get further west of Donner Pass.  The photo I posted further up was taken above Donner Lake at the old vista point by the bridge.  I accessed this section of the old highway by exiting eastbound I-80 at Soda Springs near the summit, prior to the Donner Lake exit, and we wound our way down to lake level on the old road, just like when I was a kid.

 

Kevin,

 

I do love the old SP Daylight #4449.  I saw it first when it was hauling the Freedom Train back in the 70's and sporting a red and blue paint job, and have seen it since on special runs with proper SP Daylight orange & red color scheme.  She's a real beauty that captures the glamour associated with rail travel, particularly on the scenic run between San Francisco and Los Angeles.  I had the HO gauge version of the Daylight running around the Xmas tree for many years.
 
@orvphil

No family connected with the RR far as one knows, just love locomotives and trains, especially from the golden age of steam! *LOL*

If you ever want to understand how the United States government can kill off an industry, read up on the relationship between that body and the railroads, it is not a pretty story.

Seems odd that Obama is now offering to throw millions (well short of the billions that would actually be needed) to develop "high speed rail", when it was actions by Washington DC that killed off passenger rail in the first place. So many ROWs were torn up and or repurposed (the most famous recent instance is the High Line here in NYC), that it is going to take a major undertaking of time, money and will to rebuild anything like what the USA once had.

Prior to WWII and for a bit afterwards the United States had the fastest and most advanced rail system in the world.

There are a few good television programmes out there on the history of US RRs. The first is called "Trains Unlimited" and the other is a PBS/American Experience programme "Streamliners"

 
the old SP Daylight #4449

This locomotive passed through Tucson early in the 80's and I witnessed it pulling into the downtown siding where it stopped. My idea is that it was pulling the circus train, but I may have conflated that from some other event. I have photos someplace.
 
Like many others, we saw some rails torn up for walking, bicycling, and trails in what became suburbia, previously country we would trek out to and enjoy. While many of you Easterners and N.Yorkers especially still use the train to commute, that pretty much ended as it was once known, in the suburbs of Detroit. Well, Detroit ...pretty much is a shadow of its former self, anyways. I have been aware of what happened to trains, but haven't read the details, but I will look at the PBS STreamliners video. I remember "Streamliners" but think I missed seeing it and thanks for referencing both videos. We could use more trains, but I have to say, something less coal or oil dependent. O'bama wants ...meanwhile, what do we get? More cars - and something you can all ponder - they want to build a fast rail train between Atlanta and Chattanooga. What's going on here? We aren't privy to all that is planned, that's what going on....
allways. Thanks Launderess.
 
Another Thing About Steam Locomotives

Since they are essentially powerful boilers on wheels many states now have strict laws/rules on whom is allowed to operate them, this as you can imagine whittles down the already small number of *qualified* persons.

For all their glamour and appeal steam locomotives are not the most efficent method of getting power on the point. This is why as word got out amoung RR circles about diesels and their power/designs improved the writing was on the wall for steam power especially for medium to long haul.

One diesel locomotive made a "test" run back in the 1950's or so going from east to west and IIRC back again without all the nonesense required of steam (water/coaling/rest stops, change of crews, etc...), indeed moving to diesel electric resulted in huge savings to RRs as they dismantled and or otherwise got shot of the infrastructure required for steam including no small numbers of workers.

The other impact was felt in the coal business. Steam once powered everything from ships to locomotives and once they switched to petrol, that only left electrical generating plants and home heating as the largest consumers of coal. Soon even home heating began to be replaced by oil, natural gas or electric as a good number of electric generating plants.
 
I remember oil and coal being used in our neighborhood while we had a "modern" gas furnace. The one house behind ours had a coal burning furnace for a long time, til they finally got gas. Yep, transitions made sense when increased efficiency was included...but the steam locomotive will forever be my favorite, efficiencies aside. Love that modern rocket shaped one, Post# 638769, Reply# 37 Model J#611. My lionel train set was a steam locomotive, used some white pellets that provided the steam appearance, as they heated up and dissolved. Hmm, we go from washers, dryers, kitchen appliances to trains....let's see, anyone transport their washers, dryers, or 600lb Amana microwaves by train? :-)

I always thought by now, we'd have a high speed rail system, as Japan, Germany and Disneyworld(just kidding there)....but no, we drive cars and take planes which have seen more decline since they were de-regulated.

Nothing replaces what the senses are doused with, when exposed to a steam engine.

:-)
 
I believe I was conceived loving trains

I was absolutely fascinated by trains as early as I can remember. I had those little tots snap together wooden tracks you pushed the train around and my dad built me a little ride on locomotive out of a large pole, with the cab, smokestack etc which I pushed myself around on when I was 3 or so years old. I got my first electric (battery) train set god knows when, maybe about 5. Going on the train with my mom to visit my gramma in Hamilton a few times a year was beyond exciting. Waiting on the platform for that first glimpse of the light in the distance, never forget that. And eating lunch in the real dining car which they still had back then for a short period anyways. Every summer from the time I was in rubber pants we'd go to the Detroit Zoo and it was the miniature train I was excited about, not the animals , just that train. The folks could have set me in it and come back hours later and I'd be crying when they tried to get me off no doubt.

One time when I was still around 5-6 my dad told us we were going on a car trip to Toronto and that they had trains running under the street and the cars were over top of it.. I took that to mean that the cars were riding on top of the train. I can still remember that day when we got there and couldn't figure out why there were no cars on to roof of the train like my dad had said HA. Then one Christmas I got my first real electric train set which I continued to add onto for years.

When I was a little older I'd go with my friend or by myself and walk the mile or so towards the train yards and sit there and watch the goings from the side of the overpass. CN donated their loco 6069 to the city and that was thrilling when it steamed into town and it's final resting place on the waterfront, its still there. They were selling shares in it, not that I knew what a share really was but my dad explained it was like owning a piece of it.. so of course I had to have a share. Still have it somewheres around here.

My dad, being from England, always went on about the trains over there, how fast they were, etc etc.. When I was 11 my mom took me and my oldest sister over to England to visit all the relatives. First we stayed with my uncle in London and of course the tube was a major highlight. He took us one day to Alton Towers and lo and behold they had the worlds largest train set there.. it was amazing. But the biggest highlight was when it was time to head up to Newcastle to my grans. We got to the station and lo and behold it was the Flying Scotsman we were going on. I don't think I've ever ever been more excited than that day. It was so different, the coaches with the compartments and the narrow hallway etc. The windows opened,everything, a dream come true for me.
When CN brought out the Turbo train between Toronto and Montreal I pleaded for a trip on that but it never happened. As well the time we did go to Toronto on the train I saw the CP Canadian sitting in Union Station, all stainless steel and shiny with the dome cars just like I'd seen in pictures and postcards. A huge wish of mine to go on that likely wasn't going to happen. It had to be that one, the rival CN Super Continental was a drab green and didn't have dome cars.. Had to go with the dome LOL . That dream never came to be until.....

I never actually thought of working on the railroad, ever. When I graduated highschool I went to first year college to study sociology and behavioral sciences. I wasn't that excited about it as the first year ended but what the hay. The following summer my best friend came down to visit for the weekend and told me he was going to hitchhike out to Vancouver and did I want to come along. He was planning on finding a summer job in a restaurant or something.So I asked the folks and they were ok with it. We got as far as Calgary and decided to split up and meet in Vancouver. I got a ride as far as Banff AB and spent the night in some motel where it hit me that I could actually buy a ticket and take the Canadian the rest of the way to Vancouver. So I got up early in the morning and headed to the little station to await the train. It was really early and cool and there was just this elderly couple standing there and me. So we chatted, they were from Georgia and he was a retired minister. The Mrs. while we were standing there took a jar of Vaseline from her handbag and started rubbing it on her arms, which I thought was strange and she noticed so she explained that "she was allergic to cold" and it was the only thing she had found that would stop her breaking out in hives... Well can you believe it...she couldn't because when I told her I suffered from it as well. Here she was probably about 80 years old and never met another person until me who had the same allergy. I think that made her day if not her trip, that she wasn't the only crazy person on the planet who had an allergy to cold.

So back to trains.. the Canadian arrived and the 3 of us got onboard, bought our tickets onboard and had a wonderful trip through the Rockies.Of course I explored every inch of that train from one end to the other.
My friend Bryan arrived in Vancouver the next day where we'd planned to meet up and chastized me severely for cheating.. oh well,, I got my ride on the Canadian.

We found a weekly rental apartment and set out to find work for the summer. Within a day he'd found a job as a waiter which he already had experience at and I just went around sightseeing really and saw the trains working the docks on the waterfront. I found their employment office but they had a sign on the counter that they weren't hiring any track laborers so I asked the man behind the counter if there was anything. I must have been a sight with my longish hair etc. So he asked if I had any office experience and I said no other than I could type and keypunch and had 2 years of computer programming (fortran, assembler) at highschool.. He asked me how fast I could type and I said something like 60 WPM. He then led me over to a typewriter, put down a test sheet and told me to "start typing" . When he said enough he went over to the phone, called someone and we waited until this older gent in a suit appeared who then escorted me out of the building and over to another building, the wharf freight office, which is where the Pan Pacific Hotel now sits over the water and I started my first day of work. Anyways,, long story short I ended up working in all different areas of the railroad, billing clerk, rate clerk, telex operator, car checker, switchman, back to the office environment, over to piggyback services, anywhere I could keep on working each time I was about to be laid off which was often, something always turned up somewhere and eventually I got promoted to management,, which looking back was the biggest mistake I made. All the fun, all the employee loyalty was fast disappearing in the industry throughout the 90's. I had a lot of opportunities while I was there and gained a lot of first hand experience from the tracks on up. I was glad to go though after 31 years.

petek++11-13-2012-21-09-51.jpg
 
Passenger Service Is Nice, But Freight Pays The Bills

It was true back in the day and is still so today. Thus in order for passenger service to survive at all it requires some form of subsidy. Don't think there is a long or short haul RR, much less commuter or subway system that has anything near 100% farebox recovery. The NYC subway system certainly does not.

This is why even though many RR companies abandoned passenger service fast at the feds would let them in the USA, they still kept freight. Even today IIRC rail moves a sizable amount of freight on this side of the pond, especially goods that aren't time sensitive. What is going to kill some RRs is the move to kill off coal for electric power plants. The move to natural gas means less need to drag huge trains of the stuff across the country.

By the 1960's RRs were dropping passenger service and infractructure fast as it could be got shot of; that is how the great Penn Station in NYC came to be torn down. The RR no longer required that barn of a structure as it's head house, nor had the funds for renovation and or upkeep, so it was put to the bid. That was a common thread all over the United States through the 1970's or so. Lines were abandoned or sold off. ROWs ripped up. Equipment sold off (often overseas) or simply scrapped, and so forth.

The PBS show mentioned upthread about "Streamliners" tells the story of the demise of original California Zephyr which happily was picked up by Amtrak. There was once a Texas Zephyr as well, but it isn't going to come back IMHO.

en.wikipedia.org

California Zephyr - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org en.wikipedia.org
 
It was the building of the Interstates and other expressways in the 50's that clobbered the railroads not only for passengers but traditional "boxcar" traffic. Why send it rail and wait possibly 2 weeks when you can have it in 3 days across the country.
Added to that all railroads (with questionable inclusion of the CNR) were not government "subsidized" as was the trucking industry. That government trucking "subsidy" came in the form of the trucking industry using those very taxpayer built Interstates and expressways to get the freight from point A to point B. The railroads have to build and pay and maintain their own "interstates" (the tracks and infrastructure) from their profits AND to add insult to injury were paying fuel taxes on the diesel to support the building of the highways that their competitors are driving on. I think the fuel tax thing may have been resolved either in Canada or the US but not the maintenance of way. The truckers are still getting a somewhat "free ride"
 
Petek - great story, and it reminded me of my mom and her side of the family, from Newcastle-upon-Tyne.

I checked out the Flying Scotsman name, as I heard of it only, and found it's in restoration.

http://www.nrm.org.uk/flyingscotsman

Life in corporations changed in the mid-80's, I thought..and the guys I worked with said the company was a better company to work for, had more company loyalty and morale...til AT&T bought them out. It was just the tip of the iceberg, but that train goes nowhere.

That's a video, right - The Canadian?

Enjoyed the read and thanks for sharing.

ovrphil++11-13-2012-22-17-34.jpg
 
Deregulation of the rail industry in N.America actually made things kind of interesting I think with the formation of hundreds of little short lines. It made setting competitive freight rates like a game. Competing with another road, not knowing how low they were bidding with shorty to capture the business since federal laws make it illegal for shippers and receivers and shortlines to divulge your competitors bid or rate.

Here's a link to many of them.

 
Amtrak's California Zephyr

The so-named run operated by Amtrak is not the same as the original, but at least it gives proper recognition to one of America's great trains.

 

The Amtrak "California Zephyr" uses the same ROW as SP/UP's Overland Route, which was the domain of "The City of San Francisco" between Chicago and Oakland, widely considered a less scenic route than that of the competing "California Zephyr."

 

The true "California Zephyr" used the ROWs and associated locomotives of the Burlington Route, Denver & Rio Grande, and Western Pacific's Feather River Route between Chicago and Oakland, offered five Vista-Dome coaches and was scheduled so that the scenic portions were covered during daylight hours and less impressive terrain after dark.

 

I've ridden on both, along with the Santa Fe's Super Chief which takes a more southerly route between Chicago and Richmond, CA.

 

Interestingly, the "Overland Route" likely contains/ed the longest over water segment of any railroad in the country, cutting across the width of Great Salt Lake so close to water level that the view out the window suggests the entire train is defying the laws of physics.
 
@petek

Agree with you but still RR moves quite allot of tonnage around the USA, just take a peep at UP's famous "hill" freight yard.

For non-time sensitive or otherwise precious cargo RR is often cheaper to move from say an east or west coast port to points inland, then continue via truck for the last leg of the journey. Much of this equation will change once the new and improved Panama Canal opens. That is going to bring deep sea ports from Texas up to Maine into play and each state is looking at ways to make their ports competitive. However once the goods land things still will have to move inland.
 
Freight trains are still going to be used to carry items too large and heavy for trucks--power plant equipmnet.Generator rotors and stators-and turbine rotors and stators as well.Then there is very large and heavy mining vehicles and equipment-the parts of these are again too large and heavy to go by truck.And trains are still cheaper for hauling large amounts of cargo at one time than trucks.Trucks have more flexibility-there are more roads than train tracks.And not all large customers have a rail siding next to their site.Also for power plants--very large substation transformers are too heavy to go by truck.Some of those have to go by train-special train cars are used to carry the transformers.The bushings , expansion tanks, and oil are removed for the transformers trip-then these items are reinstalled on and in the transformer when it is at its final site.For instances where transformers have to go by truck-the customer uses single phase transformers connected as a three phase bank.A truck can carry those like one at a time.The place where I work at has such a bank-since the site is long way from a train track.Was interesting when the oil was replaced and pressed in our transformers-several tanker trucks!and another truck carrying the pressing-filtering equipment.Was fascinating to watch-all we could do anyway since the plant had no power other than a smaller genset for light and heat.Could not run transmitters.
 
Tom,  thanks for a nice alternative read.  Amtrak still has service here to NOLA and round trip back to Chicago, I guess it's whats left of City of New Orleans line.  I used it once just a few years back ( too many cars and uhauls, not enough drivers).  It was fascinating, after being use to air travel the distance between seats and the windows make it VERY relaxing.  On the ride into NOLA you go over the long bridge over lake Ponchartrain (fun).  The sad thing is seeing all the little towns from the side opposite interstate 55, many small towns business's seem abandoned,  The nations large retailer got the best of them. 

RCD, Drew the tracks in Reno are so close to the casino's,  really seems like the wild west.    The RR track is one block down from us the train to Chicago I think passes everynight at 11pm here.  When we hear the train we always know its 11pm.  Thanks again.  alr 
 
From my stash of favorites, the last run of the N&W 611, running under black flags like a funeral train. There's lots of good whistle blowing, if not the close tracking of the original video in this thread.

If you love excellent photographs of steam trains taken by a man whose skill and imagination in photography were only exceeded by his love of trains, you must look at the photographs of O. Winston Link. Some of his photographs are contained in a book titled Steam, Steel and Stars along with commentary on how he arranged the shots.

The Norfolk & Western was the last major railroad to totally convert to Diesel since it was principally a hauler of coal and operated in a region where coal was plentiful. Link got permission from the company to photograph the trains. Some huge versions of his photographs are at Lynchburg in the rail museum.

Kipp Teague's RetroWeb - The "Last" Run of the N&W 611

Chronicling the last run of the Norfolk & Western Class J steam locomotive 611
www.retroweb.com
 
And here is a treasure trove of steam locomotives

Look at the cylinders on the freight locomotives! They look like elephant genitals hung on a monkey. These trains travelled in the mountains and needed power to pull long trains of coal cars. Compare them to the steam cylinders on the passenger engines which usually ran faster but did not have to pull as much weight.

 
Here's an interesting video of the Royal Hudson making a rare trip out of Vancouver to Blaine Wash. The Royal Hudson is a sightseeing train running from North Vancouver up the coast to Squamish BC and back.. or you can take the ferry back.

In the video at the 1.50 mark you can see the US/Cda border crossing and as it pans to the right the big white arch is called the Peace Arch marking the official line. If you look in the background behind the arch you can see houses to the left which are in Canada and over to the right they're in the US.. There are no fences, at least there weren't when I lived there.. you could just walk around anywhere on either side.

iirc there was a requirement as to why whenever these units crossed over they had to have the diesel behind them. Something about certifications

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
 

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