High Sierras
First let me say what an outstanding website, simply awesome. I can not begin to imagine the time spent to put all this together.
I have spent the last two nights trying to find a moment in time that is still pressed into my memory from some forty years ago.
While driving to Northern California on SR 395 we decided catch SR 89 to follow through the High Sierras north to Tahoe on to Truckee and back down to Reno. While enjoying this scenic route some where I remember coming to a little town the name I can not remember, but I recall two trains a trestle(s) and tunnel(s) in what one may call a gorge. The tracks were at different elevations may have been to lessen the grade? My field of view seamed very narrow and as I was driving it was soon out of view.
I have been all over your website but you have so much information there and not knowing where to look I thought some one might know of what I am trying to remember. Something that just came back to me is that I was passed by a pickup truck which was marked CATERPILLAR OF SACRAMENTO and he was really going fast and turned of on a different road??? I also followed the Southern Pacific tracks from truckee down to Sacramento using an online TOPO map with no avail. It is possible I may have been on the other side of Truckee. Thanks.
Best Regards,
Jerry Kirkegaard
P.S. I wish I had been a engineer, I think in a past life I was. Years ago when I tried I was told they were only hiring women and tried to get my wife to go into Los Angeles for a interview.
posted from CPRR Discussion Group at 8:47 AM
3 Comments:
From: KyleWyatt@aol.com
I'd guess the spot is in the Truckee River canyon, between Truckee and Reno. That is the only place on the route described where you would have found tracks 40 years ago, and the Southern Pacific line in the canyon was and still is double track, with tracks at somewhat different elevations in a number of places. There are several crossings of the Truckee River.
—Kyle
From: "Jerry Kirkegaard" jakirkegaard@charter.net
Thanks Kyle.
I will check it out on a topo, I was thinking it may have been the Keddie Wye, but after looking at topos and aerials I think not.
Thanks again,
—Jerry
From: KyleWyatt@aol.com
From your original message, I had gathered you followed Hwy 89 around Lake Tahoe and up to Truckee, and then went down I-80 (or US 40) to Reno. If you went into the Feather River Canyon, that opens up a whole different set of possibilities. Just west of Keddie wye the Western Pacific mainline continues down the canyon but up on the side wall, while on the opposite side the High Line heads north to the junction with the Great Northern, initially climbing the opposite canyon wall with some high spectacular bridges. but that is DEFINITELY NOT the way to Reno. And all of that is single track, not double track.
—Kyle
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