Question for those of you in the know: How many trains per day (meanining in daylight) travel over Donner Pass or the Feather River routes? Is there any traffic to speak of running north of Keddie Wye? I might be interested in spending some time in the area in late spring and would like to know where would be the most beneficial place to spend my time.
Steve Troy
The Hill averages about 6 trains a day including Amtrak. I spent a day in November and got the normal four UP Trains at Norden in addition to Amtrak #5 and #6. Some days the west bound Z train is very late and is on the Pass during the daylight hours.
The Feather River line can be good one day and poor the next, but you can check out the web cam daily for trains. It hosts more trains than the Overland route and can be fun to check out. The web site is listed below and if you check a few times a day, you will see a fair amount of traffic. The 1983 normally returns west on the Feather River line every five or six days from Utah.
The line north of Keddie is the BNSF and is very light in traffic.
http://www.wplives.org/WPRM_Home/WPRM_webcam/wprm_webcam.html
Thanks. Since there are few trains on Donner, is it possible to photograph a specific train in more than one location? I would assume that since they’re going uphill/downhill, you could leapfrog ahead and get more than one shot at them. But perhaps track speeds are too high and roads are too poor.
My thought is to catch the early morning east bound trains in Colfax or Newcastle. Usually you have two in the morning and after they leave town, you can get them at each location up the Hill since they average about 15mph to 20 mph. Normally, you can get both of those at Emigrant Gap and one at Yuba also. You can get them again at Norden or Soda Springs since the single track allows you to view all meets at Norden if all goes well, the west bound trains will start to show up at that time. We made it to Truckee while the east bound trains were waiting for #5 out of Truckee. I shot pictures of #5 in Truckee and the west bound freight that was following #5 west out of town. Most of the pictures that day showed each of the trains several times in different locations, but you do drive a lot of miles doing it.
If you have a scanner, it helps to locate where the trains are most of the time and when they are waiting for an opposite movement.
Enjoy the Hill!
Thanks - sounds like a good plan to follow.