Our ride now takes us along the active right of way, which used to be double tracked. The structure is a signal bridge. The signals tell the engineer if the track ahead is clear.

Looking up at the signal bridge.

This photo was taken in 2009. A mile or two east of the two mile long tunnel is "Shed 47," which protects the switch where the single track going east once again becomes double track. This shed is clearly visible from I-80 on the other side of Donner Lake.

The commerce of the nation rolls by.
Photo by Tom.

On the 2012 ride, we were surprised to see the Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey circus train roll by. It was leaving California, headed east.

Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey has two trains, the "red tour" and the "blue tour," that tour different parts of the country. This is the blue tour.

Baggage cars were at the front of the train. You can go to http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yw2eRjVRLZk&feature=related to see them loading elephants about 9 1/2 minutes into the video. Then there are a number of passenger cars for the employees. Finally there are many flat cars carrying containers of equipment.

Each of those flat cars is 90 feet long. The entire train is about 5,000 feet long.

About a mile east of Shed 47 is Andover, where the double track passes through a set of curved tunnels and heads down into Coldstream Canyon on its way to Truckee. Luckily for us there is a road which passes over the top of the tunnels.

We ain't goin' in there...
Photo by Vernie
You can see where the top of the tunnel has been notched just a bit to provide adequate clearance for the double stack container trains.

Here we are at the crest of the road over the Andover tunnels.

--Photo by Ryan Martin--
Here's the same area, six months later. A small group of dedicated railroad photographers snowshoed up to this area to get some pictures of a rotary snow plow working uphill toward the Andover tunnels. The winter of 2011 saw an unusually heavy snowfall; four feet in one night alone. It had been fifteen years since the rotaries were last called out; normally they are mothballed in Roseville, like battleships during peacetime. But when nature throws more precipitation at the pass than the Cats, flangers and spreaders can handle, the railroad is forced to call out its last, and most expensive, line of defense. Truly awesome machines to witness in action.
A rotary in action can be seen at:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W9pu98ePUVU
(photographer unknown, sorry about the snow on the lens!)