Monday, February 04, 2008

Snow Strands Nearly 400 Train Passengers in California Mountains

Received the following news article via email with no notation as to date or source of the article.
Then I found a follow-up article as shown below.

SAN FRANCISCO — Amtrak officials say that nearly 400 people are trapped inside two passenger trains that have been stuck all afternoon in the snowy Northern California mountains.
An Amtrak spokeswoman says the trains were stranded near Donner Pass around 2 p.m. today after a large snow plow being used to clear the tracks fell through a walkway and blocked the trains' path.

No injuries have been reported and both trains have heating and lights.

The spokeswoman says Amtrak is trying to summon buses to nearby towns to evacuate passengers, but have had little luck because many of the vehicles are in Arizona for the Super Bowl.

Officials said at 7 p.m. that they expect it may take another hour or two to clear the tracks and that more snow that has fallen since the accident.

The following article follows-up on the above. It is from the Associated Press (AP) and was posted on the MSNBC web site on 2-2-08.

Trains freed from snowy Calif. mountains

Winter storms on both sides of country make for miserable travel
The Associated Press
updated 4:51 p.m. ET, Sat., Feb. 2, 2008

CHICAGO - A passenger train stuck overnight in the Northern California mountains resumed its journey Saturday after a snow plow that was blocking the tracks was removed, officials said.

Two Amtrak trains with about 400 passengers were initially stranded after the accident Friday. One train was pulled to Reno, Nevada, and its 165 passengers were put up in a hotel, Amtrak spokeswoman Karina Romero said.

The other train, which was headed from Emeryville to Chicago, remained in the mountains until the tracks were cleared Saturday morning.

About 60 passengers from the second train were taken by bus back to the San Francisco Bay area overnight, while 155 stayed on board to wait for the line to reopen, Romero said.

The train had heating and lights and passengers were given food, Romero said. No injuries were reported.

The train was scheduled to arrive in Chicago Monday morning about 16 hours behind schedule.

A Union Pacific spokeswoman, Zoe Richmond, confirmed that the company's equipment was blocking the tracks but had no other information.