January 13, 1952.  The streamliner passenger train City of San Francisco gets caught in a blizzard in Donner Pass.  Train crew reach the call box and notify operations that they are stuck.  8-12 foot snow drifts trap the train and 226 people for 3 days, suffering from cold, and from carbon monoxide poisoning from poorly ventilated portable heaters.  


City of San Francisco train stuck in snow drift:




The Southern Pacific Railroad worked for 3 days and nights trying to get to the location to rescue the passengers, but was not successful until January 16th.  Road crews cleared a path to the train from the nearest road and the passengers were moved to a lodge.  It took until January 19th to free the train itself, and a snow plow that got stuck trying to clear the tracks.  


Overhead view of stranded train:




Some good accounts of the incident are at:

Classic Trains magazine article, "Stranded Streamliner"

Trains and Travel 1953 article, at cprr.org


Railroad rotary snowplow:

Damn....cool pictures, but that would suck ass.

The train ride from Reno over the Donner to Oakland (train doesn't go to San Francisco since there's no RR bridge) is quite beautiful.  You see things you wouldn't see if you drive I-80.

Drove over the Donner in a blizzard once.  CalTrans led the way and everyone went single file after him.  No one tried speeding ahead and everyone followed the taillight in front.  Thank you CalTrans.

Donner Pass - 226 rescued, but 236 started the trip...

Very interesting story and some neat photos.

So they ate the other ten while the train was snowed in?

In the 60's or 70's my dad was caught on a commuter train out of NYC overnight by a snow storm.  Said the cops brought 'em all burgers and fries from McDonalds.

I got to ride the last steam locomotive to go through the pass when I was a kid (my mom worked for the mayor of Roseville). It's a beautiful trip.

And not a single lawsuit was  brought forward. Those were the days.

My youngest son and I helped pour the monument and place the bronze plaque on it commemorating the summit tunnel above Donner lake in 1999. As per tradition there is an unopened bottle of Arrogant Bastard Ale in the monument.

Couldn't help but think of the movie Snowball Express looking at those pics.