Donner Pass

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Donner Pass
Donner Pass in the 1870s
Elevation	7,085 ft. / 2,160 m
Location	California, United States
Range	Sierra Nevada
Traversed by	Lincoln Highway US 40 (until 1964) SP Railroad (until 1994) I 80 (indirectly, see article)

Donner Pass (el. 7,085 ft. / 2,160 m.) is a high mountain pass in the northern Sierra Nevada, located above Donner Lake about nine miles West of Truckee, California. It is a narrow pass with a very steep approach from the east, and a gradual approach from the west.

1 History
2 The CPRR & Donner Pass
3 Highways
4 Weather
5 External links
6 Popular Culture

[edit] History

To reach Donner Pass from the East, pioneer emigrants to California had to travel across the Nevada desert, and this route was normally avoided in favor of the Santa Fe Trail.

In the winter of 1846–1847, the Donner Party was trapped by snowstorms, and members were forced to endure such great hunger that animal hides and tree bark were the only nutritional sustenance available to the party. 29 of the 32 died with the final three resorting to cannibalism in order to survive.

On January 13, 1952, another group became stranded just west of Donner pass at Yuba Pass. Southern Pacific's passenger train "City of San Francisco" was en route westbound through the gap when a raging blizzard slowed the train to a halt. The passengers and crew were stranded for six days until help could arrive. [1]

[edit] The CPRR & Donner Pass

CPRR Engineers L.M. Clement & T.D. Judah: "iron road" conquerors of Donner Pass and the Sierras.

After almost five years of sustained construction effort, in the late Spring of 1868 the Central Pacific Railroad finally "conquered" the Sierra Nevada Mountains with the successful completion at Donner Pass of its 1,659-foot (506 m) Tunnel #6 (aka "The Summit Tunnel") thus permitting the mass transportation of passengers and freight over the Sierra range for the first time. Following a route first surveyed and proposed by the CPRR's original Chief Engineer, Theodore D. Judah (1826-1863), the construction of the four tunnels, several miles of showsheds, and two "Chinese Walls" necessary to breach Donner Summit constituted by far the most difficult challenge of the entire original Sacramento to Ogden CPRR route. Principally designed and built under the personal, often on-site direction of the CPRR's Chief Assistant Engineer, Lewis M. Clement (1837-1914), the original (Track #1) summit grade remained in continuous daily use from June 18, 1868, when the first CPRR passenger train ran through the Summit Tunnel, until 1993 when the Southern Pacific Railroad (which operated the CPRR-built Oakland-Ogden line until its 1996 merger with the Union Pacific Railroad) abandoned and pulled up the 6.7 mile (10.7 km) section of Track #1 over the summit running between Shed #41 at Norden (MP 192.1 / 309 km) and the covered crossovers in Shed #47 (MP 198.8 / 320 km) located about a mile East of the old flyover at Eder. Since then all East and Westbound traffic has been run over the Track #2 grade crossing the summit about one mile South of Donner Pass through the 10,322-foot (3,146 m) long Tunnel #41 (aka "The Big Hole") running under Mt. Judah between Soda Springs and Eder. Then operator SPRR made this change because the railroad considered Track #2 and Tunnel #41 (which was opened in 1925 when the summit section of the grade was finally double tracked) to be far easier and less expensive to maintain and keep open in the harsh Sierra winters than the Track #1 tunnels and snow sheds over the summit.[2]

Donner Lake (left) and the now abandoned ex-CPRR (SPRR/UPRR) Track #1 grade over Donner Pass. (2003)

In conjunction with major ongoing upgrades and expansions being made to the Port of Oakland in order to better accommodate the rapidly growing North American trade with Asia and the Pacific, the cooperation of the UPRR, the Port's principal rail partner, has been sought to "construct a second track and raise tunnel clearances over Donner Pass for container trains linking California with the rest of the country."[3] To accomplish this objective would likely require the UP to either drive a second parallel tunnel next to Tunnel #41, or to restore and reopen the summit section of Track #1 between Sheds #41 and #47. Either infrastructure upgrade would increase the route's overall capacity, considerably simplify traffic management, and effectively eliminate delays currently caused by having to run all east and west bound traffic between Norden and Eder over a single track. [To fully eliminate the grade's "bottleneck" delays the now single track 7.1 mile section between Switch #9 (MP 171.9 / 277 km) and Shed #10 (MP 179.0 / 288 km) just west of Cisco would likely also have to be restored to double track.] Increasing tunnel and snow shed clearances on the Sierra grade would also permit the use of double-stacked container cars which now can only be run via the UP's Feather River grade.[4] It is not yet clear, however, when (or if) any of these proposed major infrastructure upgrades might become a reality.

[edit] Highways

The Donner Pass Road, which was part of the historic Lincoln Highway (the first road across America), crosses Donner Pass. Interstate 80 crosses the Sierra crest through the Euer Saddle which is approximately two miles to the north. Euer Saddle is slightly higher than the Donner Pass, but it is also much wider.

[edit] Weather

Winter weather in Donner pass can be brutal. Precipitation averages 54 inches (137 cm), most of which falls as snow. At 415 inches (10.5 m) per year, it is one of the snowiest places in the United States. To take advantage of this, the Boreal Ski Resort was built to the north: ski resorts in the Lake Tahoe area report an average of 300"-500" (7.6 - 12.7 m) of snowfall per season.[5] Winds in the pass can also become extreme and 100+ mph (160 km/h) wind gusts are common during winter storms.

The winter of 1846-47 was especially severe, and this is generally cited as the single most important factor in the disaster of the Donner Party.