Can anyone tell me about how many trains a day use each of the above routes??? I am travelling from Australia and would like to photograph trains in these locations, but am finding reliable information hard to get.[?]
Emu:
Both are currently less than 10 trains a day. From what I am aware of, Feather River might be the busier one, especially where BNSF is on it or now owns it near Keddie.
(We recently did two bridge surveys near Keddie and only saw 5 trains in two days of work during daylight hours)…Drove along Donner on I-80 several times coming into Reno, from Truckee on down, and saw nada.
How’s your gambling luck? (Finding trains or in the casinos?, probably same chances)
I can’t speak for the ex Western Paific Line (Feather River), but my experience with Donner Pass yielded very few trains. I only saw one westbound train when I visited it in October, 1993, a westbound freight with D&RGW power which surprised me at Auburn, CA.
A good place to photograph westbound trains (if you can find any) is the Emmigrant Gap rest area on the westbound lanes of Interstate 80. Auburn is another interesting location, but here the eastbound and the westbound tracks are widely separated; the westbound track runs a few miles south of Auburn while the eastbound track runs through the city.
One sure bet ( plus or minus several hours) would be the Amtrak California Zephyr (aka “California’s Heifer” to us mid-western boys). It crosses Donner on its way between Reno and Sacremento.
Good suggestion about the California Zephyr; it is the only train you can count on. It is scheduled to pass through Colfax, which is west of Emmigrant Gap at 12:30 PM so if it is running appreciably late you might be lucky, and the train will have halfway decent lighting.
Thank you to all who took the time to reply…The Amtrak trains thru Donner pass were on my list anyway…and we might as well take the detour thru Feather River. Thank you all for the other tips.
But the big question is…where are all the trains in that part of California??? Has there been a traffic downturn or are they on a route I am not aware of???
Any tips are more than welcome.
Thanks again Folks.
You might try the Siskyou route north to Oregon. When I worked at the Roseville yard, we sent a lot of trains that way. [:p][:D]