Donner Pass Snow Sheds 4 wheeling through the abandoned sheds

See link at bottom. Video shot going from the East end of the old Union Pacific snow sheds that crossed Donner Summit. This route was replaced by a tunnel called "The Big Hole" that eliminated this route.This video was taken in August, there was still a lot of running water and huge deep puddles inside some of the snow sheds and tunnels. I had my Jeep in 4WD just to be safe, probably was not needed but I cautioned on the safe side. These snow sheds were about 3.4 miles long total.. I do not commend trying to do this in a car, you need at least a pick up truck to do these tunnels. Note that in one shot I am parked on top of the 75 foot Chinese wall and to the right is actually the Upper Chinese wall. There was a Chinese man named Fong Quong that operated a 24 hour Commissary in the snow sheds east of Soda Springs, this is very interesting and has photos and more history http://donnersummithistoricalsociety.org/PDFs/newsletters/news11/february11.pdf

Category:

Travel & Events

Tags:

• Donner
• Pass
• Snow
• Sheds
• Union
• Pacific
• Railroad
• Altafest
• Lake
• Trains

[Alwaystrains]

When were these sheds abandoned? I used to drive over Donner Pass on interstate 80 and would always see these sheds on the opposite side of the lake. I didn't know if trains where going through them or not.

[sniperjdp]

@Alwaystrains Abandoned back in around 1993 when they put in the new tunnel called "the big hole" there.

[sniperjdp]

@Alwaystrains @Alwaystrains Abandoned back in around 1993 when they put in the new tunnel called "the big hole" there.

[sniperjdp]

@Alwaystrains I believe it was around 1993 when they started using the new tunnel and removed the tracks from these sheds.

[rbryanhull]

Drove through there yesterday in a Ford Fusion (before I knew that I couldn't make it in a car, lol) and had no problems at all. Cool that we have been left physical access to the history up there.

[sniperjdp]

@rbryanhull Some cars have driven it, I would not take either one of our 1985 Corvettes through there though!!! The roadbed was pretty much OK but where I was worried was with the deep puddles inside where you could not see if there were big rocks below the water level waiting to break an axle there or bend a wheel inside the sheds. A lot of history up there, did you make it to Shed 47?

[Alwaystrains]

@sniperjdp Oh ok thanks for telling me. This is really weird but last year I swear I saw diesel exhaust coming out of one of them!

[charliew251]

OUTSTANDING! 'great video