The Last Stand

Earlier this month, the last active SP signal bridge on Donner Pass was removed from service. Brand new sets of signals were put up on both of the crossovers in Truckee to replace the nearly thirty year old signals installed shortly after the SP went out. This bridge has been the lone active survivor since the signal bridge and searchlights at Norden were torn down on Thanksgiving of 2021. Despite the fact that it was the last active bridge, it isn't the last one standing. Several of these old bridges still stand in places such as Verdi, Yuba Gap, and Andover, which is just west of Truckee. Some of them even still have searchlights, though a signal indication hasn't showed for many years.

 

Since the Truckee bridge is bound to come down soon, I took a morning to try and catch one last eastbound go under. Although traffic was slow due to it being the weekend and there was a stalled stack train at Alta, just before 10 AM the MRVGR would show up. Prior to this, the only other trains that had passed in the previous few hours were the ZG2LT and the MROMI, which had cleared Truckee about twenty minutes before the manifest came through.

Done