Spring Garden Tunnel
History
The Western Pacific Railroad (now part of the Union Pacific Railroad) built the tracks along the Feather River in 1909 to complete the Feather River Route, a San Francisco Bay Area to Salt Lake City route competing with the Southern Pacific's route over Donner Pass.
While significantly longer, the Feather River Route was preferred by some over the Donner Pass route (elevation about 7,000 ft [2,100 m]) over the Sierra Nevada mountains, because the former's summit under Beckwourth Pass is at a lower elevation (about 5,000 ft [1,500 m]) and most of the route follows a gentler grade along the Feather River.
The tunnel was designated one of Plumas County's "7 Wonders of the Railroad World," and the north portal is 0.15 miles (0.24 km) west on Railroad Street, then 0.35 miles (0.56 km) SSE along a fair-condition dirt road from Spring Garden, California.
References
- ^ Hoover (2002). Historic spots in California (Fifth ed.). Stanford University Press. ISBN 9780804778176.
The Western Pacific line between Oroville and Chilcoot has thirty-four tunnels. ... Spring Garden is 7,344 feet in length and the Chilcoot tunnel is 6,002 feet.
- ^ "Tour 7 - Wonders of the Railroad World" (PDF). Plumas County Visitors Bureau. Retrieved 2008-08-26.