WaltersRail

The U.S. government granted land and bonds for the first transcontinental railroad based upon mileage of track completed. Because construction through the mountains was so slow, most of the government largesse was lavished upon the Union Pacific, building east from Omaha across the plains of Nebraska and eastern Wyoming.

In an attempt to balance the scales, in 1867 the Central Pacific began construction downgrade northeast of Truckee toward Nevada along the Truckee river, first through a broad valley, then down a rugged canyon where work, though difficult, was easier and faster than the trials and tribulations at the summit.

Union Pacific eastbound manifest rolling downgrade through the valley northeast of Truckee in 2022.

SP in same location 40 years earlier -- 1982

Eastbound in the valley.

Another.

Building northeast from Truckee required five major bridges across the circuitous river. In New York the company's vice president, Collis P. Huntington, was instructed to rush the iron work for these spans via land through Panama, rather than by sail around South America.

Work commenced on the foundations for the bridges, and logging camps and sawmills were established to produce the bridge timbers and thousands of cross-ties needed. Bridge foundations were completed and the masonry piers were being built by the end of April 1867. Tunnel 14, one of the two short tunnels located in the Truckee canyon, was also finished by that date.

Iron for the railroad was hauled by horses twenty-five miles across the Sierra on the wagon road from Cisco. Three thousand tons of rail, in sections twenty-four-feet long and weighing nearly five hundred pounds apiece, plus uncounted kegs of spikes and fasteners, were used.

Though not as heavy as at the summit, snow still created problems along the Truckee River. As late as April 1867, two feet of snow covered Truckee, so grading began at the lower elevations on the very eastern edge of the mountains and proceed upgrade as the snow melted.

Eastbound entering Little Truckee Canyon.

Eastbound autos in Little Truckee Canyon.

Westbound stacks rolling into Truckee.

Construction northeast of Truckee required a locomotive and cars to distribute rail and supples. However, as the railroad proceeded up the mountain's western slope, so did civilization, and all 19 of the Central Pacific's locomotives were busy handling the company's business from Sacramento to Cisco.

However, as the Central Pacific was pushing eastward up the mountain, the company was also negotiating for the purchase of the Western Pacific Railroad, an independent company that owned the franchise to build the portion of the transcontinental railroad between Sacramento and San Francisco Bay by way of Stockton. Though this company had existed about as long as the Central Pacific, it had by 1867 built only twenty miles and was nearly bankrupt.

In June 1867, the Western Pacific sold to the Central Pacific. Included in its inventory was a Baldwin-built engine named San Mateo, still warehoused in San Francisco in its factory crates, plus the iron work and trucks for ten flat cars.

Once the purchase of the Western Pacific was finalized, the unassembled components of the San Mateo and flat cars were brought up river to Sacramento, then loaded onto a train and carried to the end-of-track at Cisco. Horses then hauled the locomotive and flat car parts on the wagon road across the summit to Truckee.

By the end of July, the railroad was assembling the engine and flat cars for placement on the rails being laid from Truckee well into the canyon of the same name.

Westbound autos in Little Truckee Canyon.

Eastbound Amtrak in same location.

Westbound SP manifest exiting Little Truckee Canyon beneath the remnants of old U.S. 40. A portion of the replacement road -- I-80 -- is visible in the background.

Westbound Amtrak at same location.

Truckee became the headquarters for the construction down the Truckee River. Sawmills, houses and stores were rapidly built. Soon after the San Mateo and flat cars arrived, wagons began unloading the thousands of tons of rails needed to reach Nevada.

The locomotive and flat cars were fully assembled in early September, and track laying began along the finished roadbed. On October 29, company director Edwin B. Crocker reported that the segment through Truckee Canyon would be completed in two days. When work stopped, the railroad had reached close to the Nevada border, perhaps even beyond it, at Camp 24.

Next tracklayers returned to Truckee and began installing rails westward, completing work to Coldstream by November 18. Work then stopped for the winter. A total of 24 miles of track had been laid on both sides of Truckee. Government inspectors soon arrived to certify the finished track and approve the issue of bonds for this segment of the railroad.

Eastbound Amtrak in Truckee Canyon. Adventurous rafters have climbed up the embankment to greet the train.

Autos in the Truckee Valley.

In Truckee Canyon, eastbound Amtrak passes Floriston, once a work camp on the Central Pacific, now a tiny village on the cliffs overlooking the river.

Westbound in Little Truckee Canyon.

Westbound BNSF on trackage rights approaching Truckee.

Early in 1868, in anticipation of the extension of track eastward from Camp 24 in the spring, about forty miles of rail were brought down the mountain on sleds. Additional freight cars and two additional locomotives were also sledded across the mountains in February.

At the same time, about six thousand Chinese workers were preparing the roadbed northeast of Camp 24 and out into the broad flatland where the Truckee Canyon opens at the east edge of the Sierra. To my knowledge the valley does not have a name, so I christen it the Truckee Flats.

The Truckee Flats are a bucolic wonderland where in the 21st century horses graze peacefully beside the clear running river. I-80 clutches the hills on the west side of the expanse, and a few choice houses sit peacefully along the water. The tracks run more or less down the middle on an almost flat grade. Westbounds entering the canyon immediately begin to struggle on the climb to Truckee.

By April 12 rails were being laid just east of the Verdi, Nevada station, which became the end of track on April 16. When a bridge across the Truckee River was completed April 29, Hunter's Station became the terminus. Rails reached Reno May 4, 1867, and service from Truckee was established the next day.

Eastbound manifest in the Truckee Flats.

Westbound BNSF stacks entering the Flats.

Truckee to Verdi.

Two subjects of major importance have so far been avoided: Theodore Judah and the Donner Party. Time has come to review them both. We start with Theodore Judah.

In the early 21st century, visionary-entrepreneurs dream of space flight and artificial intelligence -- shades of HAL 9000. Their names monopolize the news -- Musk, Bezos, Zuckerburg, etc. Their 19th century counterparts dreamed of railroads. One of the biggest dreamers was Theodore Judah, who dreamed most of his life of a railroad crossing the Sierra Nevada, linking California with the rest of the country. He was quite literally the father of the first transcontinental railroad.

Judah lobbied Congress for years with maps, surveys and engineering studies. He gained the financial support of the "Big Four" -- Huntington, Hopkins, Crocker and Stanford. He incorporated the Central Pacific Rail Road Company of California on June 28, 1861. He obtained acceptance of the contract between the United States Government and the Central Pacific November 1, 1862.

Then in October 1863, he sailed from San Francisco to Panama, where he contracted yellow fever crossing the isthmus. He grew worse on the ship to New York, where he passed November 2 at 37 years.

https://swiftmedia.s3.amazonaws.com/pacific.swiftcom.com/images/sites/4/2019/05/15184156/HISTJudah-SSU-052419.jpg

At age 28, Judah, who had designed and surveyed railroads in New England, was hired as the Chief Engineer for the Sacramento Valley Railroad -- in 1854. He and his wife Anna had three options to reach the West Coast: (1) covered wagon across the continent, (2) ocean voyage around Cape Horn, the tip of South America, (3) ocean voyage to Panama, crossing the isthmus on horseback, mule or foot, or a combination thereof. They chose the third option and arrived after a lengthy and arduous journey. Under Judah's guidance, Sacramento Valley became the first common carrier railroad west of the Mississippi.

Pack mules crossing Panama.
https://www.thecollector.com/who-was-crazy-judah-railroad-genius/

In 1857, Judah published "A practical plan for building The Pacific Railroad", in which he argued for a detailed survey of a specific route across the California mountains. He lobbied in Washington but found no support.

In the fall of 1860, financed by San Francisco interests, Judah led a party into the Sierra, looking for a railroad route to Nevada. He and his team explored multiple possibilities, measured elevations and became convinced that a railroad was possible.

At that time, railroads in the eastern United States were primitive, and though some had crossed mountains, none had attempted anything like the project envisioned by Judah. Comparing Eastern mountains to the Sierra Nevada is like comparing house cats to lions.

Judah was financed by Californians who stood to make a lot of money if the California mountains and beyond were opened to rail traffic, so he was not an objective observer. That is not a critique, however. Those spearheading the development of artificial intelligence in the 21st century are also not eleemosynary institutions.

There is a saying that goes: Americans innovate, Chinese duplicate and Europeans regulate.

Eastbound in Truckee Valley. The summit in the background is where Theodore Judah believed a railroad could cross.

Eastbound beside the Truckee River.

Another eastbound. Notice the short distance between "Begin CTC" and "End CTC." These signals no longer exist, and I believe the railroad is now (July 2026) entirely CTC.

Judah believed that Donner Summit was the best route across the mountains, in part because it was the most direct from San Francisco. As discussed, he failed to consider the incredible snow at that elevation. He thought the Feather River route less desirable because of its many bends and elevation changes, and also because it was almost 100 railroad miles further to the Nevada border. Though it initially appeared that Judah and the Central Pacific had chosen the wrong route, in the 21st century, Judah has been proven mostly correct. Modern snow removal equipment allows Union Pacific to route all intermodal traffic over Donner, while reserving the Feather River and its one percent grade for heavy westbounds.

The Sierra Nevada railroad became Judah's obsession. After his death, he wife wrote:

Everything he did from the time he went to California to the day of his death was for the great continental Pacific railway. Time, money, brains, strength, body, and soul were absorbed. It was the burden of his thought day and night, largely of his conversation, till it used to be said "Judah's Pacific Railroad crazy," and I would say, "Theodore, those people don't care," or "you give your thunder away." He'd laugh and say, "But we must keep the ball rolling." A Sketch of the Life of Theodore Judah, California Historical Society Quarterly, Vol. 4, No. 3 (Sep., 1925), pp. 219-271, n. 45.

The article quoted immediately above contains another anecdote indicating the general populace's appraisal of Judah:

John A. Mclntire, of Sacramento, a former associate of Newton Booth in the wholesale grocery business in that city, states in a letter to the present writer, dated May 9, 1925, that during an early visit to Sacramento in 1861 or 1862, he was standing on 7th Street with Booth, when the latter said, "There comes crazy Judah." Young Mclntire had never seen an insane man, and was therefore much interested, and since Judah's conversation with them seemed particularly sane and lucid, he inquired the reason for Booth's remark, and was told that Judah was a skilled engineer, but was so persistent in his efforts in favor of a railroad across the mountains to connect with the eastern states that he had become almost a monomaniac upon the subject. Booth said he had been forced to tell Judah not to approach him on the subject again.

Westbound stacks prepare to enter Truckee Canyon.

Westbound Amtrak in the Truckee Flats.

Westbound stacks.

Unable to persuade Washington to finance his project, Judah did what all successful entrepreneurs do. He convinced private sources of the genius of his plan.

Judah met with Collis P. Huntington, who offered to come up with the necessary funds and bring in three other investors. Huntington, along with Leland Stanford, Mark Hopkins, and Charles Crocker were “The Big Four” who financed the founding of the Central Pacific Railroad Company.

Even these wealthy individuals did not have enough capital to finance construction across the mountains. But their involvement showed that the project was serious. Judah returned to Washington, and this time he was listened to. He lobbied for and was named Secretary of the Railroad Committees in both the House and Senate, allowing him direct access to further petition federal support for the project.

The Railroad Act of 1862, passed during the middle of the Civil War, provided that the government would give land grants to the railroad based upon mileage of completed track. The government also agreed to sell bonds on the railroad's behalf. The railroad across the California mountains was underway.

Eastbound in Truckee Canyon.

Along the Truckee River.

Truckee Canyon.

Theodore Judah was forcused on one goal -- building a railroad across the High Sierra. He soon discovered that the Big Four had multiple goals, one of which was to make as much money as possible, even if it meant sacrificing standards. For example, they wanted Judah to fudge the beginnings of grades, because the company was paid more per mile of mountain construction. Judah refused, so the Big Four hired a compliant surveyor who reported directly to them.

In a letter to Daniel Strong, his long-time associate in the push to create a Sierra railroad, Judah vented:

I cannot tell you in the brief space of a letter of all that is going on, or of all that has taken place; suffice it to say that I have had a pretty hard row to hoe. I had a blow-out about two weeks ago and freed my mind, so much so that I looked for instant decapitation. I called things by their right name and invited war; but counsels of peace prevailed and my head is still on; my hands are tied, however. We have no meeting of the board nowadays, except the regular monthly meeting, which, however, was not had this month; but there have been any quantity of private conferences to which I have not been invited. California Historical Society Quarterly, Vol. 4, No. 3 (Sep., 1925), pp. 219-271, 261.

His wife wrote of those years:

Judah used to say, when he came home from the Directors' meetings, "I cannot make these men appreciate the elephant they have on their shoulders; they will not do what I want and must do; we shall just as sure have trouble in Congress as the sun rises in the east, if they go on this way; they will not see it as it is. Something must be done. I will not be stultified before Congress and the business world." California Historical Society Quarterly, Vol. 4, No. 3 (Sep., 1925), pp. 219-271, n. 142.

He decided to attempt another gargantuan project, to buy out the Big Four's stakes in the railroad, which obviously would require the raising of enormous new capital far in excess of anything in his possession. He must have realized that the odds of success were low -- but not zero -- and certainly no worse than the odds of completing a railroad across the mountains. His efforts to rid himself of the Big Four show the level of his dissatisfaction -- also the single-mindedness that drove him throughout his life like the wind of a thunderstorm. He headed back east, hoping to meet with Cornelius Vanderbilt and other wealthy individuals.

He chose the Panama route, probably because it was the fastest. Also, he had traversed it at least once before and had withstood its dangers and hardships. However, while crossing the isthmus with his wife, he became ill and grew steadily worse onboard the ship carrying him to New York. He was diagnosed with yellow fever and spent a week bedridden in a New York hotel, where he passed in October 1863, approximately four years before the first train crossed into Nevada. He was buried in his wife's home in Connecticut.

In 1940, the U.S. Board of Geographic Names christened the peak at the top of Donner Summit "Mount Judah."

Eastbound stacks.

Eastbound through the Truckee Valley.

Grinding upgrade.

And so, at last, we come to the end of the trail to discuss the Donner Party. So much has been written on this subject that an original thought seems as elusive as an objective viewpoint. In the spirit of both, however, here goes.

On April 14, 1846, before gold was discovered in California, brothers George and Jacob Donner and their families, plus local businessman James Reed, left Springfield, Illinois, planning to establish farms in the San Joaquin Valley. All were veterans of Illinois winters, and that was a part of the problem. A heavy storm in the Midwest might drop a foot of snow, maybe two in an historic blizzard. An average year would see around 30 inches. It did not occur to these travelers that anywhere on the planet could see fifty or sixty feet of snow in a single winter.

Another part of the problem was the route chosen by the Donners. As members of a larger wagon train, they reached Fort Laramie (now home to the University of Wyoming) in about six weeks. Most everyone turned northwest along the well-traveled California/Oregon Trail, but the Donners and their followers -- 29 men, 15 women and 43 children in a column of 23 ox-drawn wagons -- turned southwest along a virtually unknown path, the so-called "Hastings Cut-off," which ran south of the Great Salt Lake and was reputed to be the shorter route to California. It turned out to be over 100 miles longer and directed the travelers through some of the worst of the Great Basin.

Tragedies are usually the combination of many small miscues leading to a result much worse than the some of their parts. The Donner fiasco was no exception.

The travelers soon found themselves at the foot of the Wasatch Mountains, where the "trail" disappeared. They blazed their own path up one side and down the other, reducing their progress some days to less than a mile.

On August 30, after gathering as much water and grass as they could carry, they entered the Great Salt Desert, where the party lost dozens of cattle and several wagons. They wasted more than a week searching for missing livestock.

By the time the Donner Party reached the Humboldt River and rejoined the main California Trail, it was late September. The other migrants who stayed on the established trail had already arrived in California. The Donners had yet to cross the Sierra Nevada.

Westbound Amtrak at Verdi, Nevada.

Eastbound autos at Verdi.

Although the Great Salt Desert lay behind, the high desert of central Nevada was not much better. They had reached the Humboldt Sink, where the river disappears into desert sand. Water at this location was brackish, undrinkable. The nights were growing cold. They felt that they had no choice but to push over the mountains. What could be worse than spending the winter in Nevada? They were about to find out.

They followed the established trail along the Truckee River into the foothills, where in an attempt to save the remaining exhausted livestock, they discarded all personal possessions and everything else not absolutely necessary for survival. The path along the river was relatively flat and congenial, as the Central Pacific discovered about 20 years later, until they reached the headwaters at a small lake, a remnant of the last ice age. Directly ahead lay the side of a mountain.

Courtesy of Google Maps, the view from the top of the pass. The Donner Party were looking up from the lake below.

It was now late October, and the migrants' path up the mountain was blocked by snow. A blizzard set in over the lake, and by the time the sky cleared, they must have realized that many of them, perhaps all, could die in the wilderness.

Rather than paraphrase their predicament, I give you the statement of one of the survivors, Lewis Keseberg:

Only the strongest men, however, could go ahead and break the road, and it would have taken a determined man to induce the party to leave the fire. Had I been well, and been able to push ahead over the ridge, some, if not all, would have followed. As it was, all lay down on the snow, and from exhaustion were soon asleep. In the night, I felt something impeding my breath. A heavy weight seemed to be resting upon me. Springing up to a sitting posture, I found myself covered with freshly-fallen snow. The camp, the cattle, my companions, had all disappeared. All I could see was snow everywhere. I shouted at the top of my voice. Suddenly, here and there, all about me, heads popped up through the snow. The scene was not unlike what one might imagine at the resurrection, when people rise up out of the earth. The terror amounted to a panic. The mules were lost, the cattle strayed away, and our further progress rendered impossible. (https://donnerpartydiary.com/nov46.htm)

On December 16, ten men and five women set out to cross the pass on homemade snowshoes. If you are familiar with Donner Summit, you understand that the journey was almost impossible. Yet, the group somehow struggled across the mountains, enduring bitter cold, unrelenting storms, impossibly deep snow and pitifully little food.

Eight men died. Two men and all the women somehow got through to the Sacramento Valley. A rescue party left Fort Sutter on January 31, 1847, and seven men reached the lake camp on February 18. They took 23 of the starving emigrants, including 17 children, back to the settlements, though several died on the way.

In all 42 perished, with 47 survivors.

A westbound Southern Pacific freight climbs through Truckee Canyon.

Downgrade along the Truckee River. The fourth unit is painted in a scheme I only saw this one time.

UP work train in Truckee Canyon.

For years it has been accepted as gospel that some members of the Donner Party consumed the flesh of the recently deceased, and thus the Donner Party has slipped into the notoriety generally reserved for serial killers and pedophiles.

Some survivors and descendants, however, vigorously disputed those claims -- to no avail. The Donner Party had become legend. The lake and summit were named after them. California opened a state park where the migrants tried to ride out the winter.

The Donner Party actually spent the winter at two separate sites: (1) Donner Lake, where cabins previously constructed provided shelter, and (2) Alder Creek, where there were no cabins and the only shelter consisted of crude wood and brush coverings leaned against trees. (The migrants at Alder Creek could not reach the lake cabins because of continuing heavy snow.)

In 2003 and 2004, archaeologists found and explored the Donner Party campsite along Alder Creek, assuming that if cannibalism occurred at all, it happened at Alder Creek where circumstances were more extreme.

Using an optical microscope to observe osteons, or the fundamental structural units of bone, Schug [the archaeologist who examined the bones] found 85 bone fragments that belonged to cow, deer, horse, and dog. But again, there were no human bones. (https://archaeology.org/issues/may-june-2012/letters-from/letter-from-california-a-new-look-at-the-donner-party/)

In 2010, a second team investigated the Alder Creek camp site, reviewed new bone fragments and again found no human bones among the detritus. (https://octa-trails.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/Dixon-et-al.-2010-Men-Women-and-Children-Starving-Archaeology-o.pdf)

Both studies accurately pointed out that lack of human bone fragments was not conclusive proof that no cannibalism had occurred. However, conclusively proving a negative (that something did not happen or does not exist) is virtually impossible. For example, take the proposition: God exists. If I ask you to prove that God does not exist, any argument you provide will be inconclusive. I then may argue: since you can't prove that God does not exist, He must exist.

The logic is faulty. Failure to prove conclusively that something does not exist or did not happen does not mean that something does exist or did happen. It simply means that one must carefully weigh the evidence for and against a specific proposition in attempting to determine validity.

One cannot prove that the Donner Party did not engage in cannibalism. That does not prove that cannibalism did occur. But is there conclusive positive evidence on the point?

The primary evidence for cannibalism came from a newpaper editor who traveled to the Donner Lake camp site in 1848, specifically to write a book. Edwin Bryant wrote in What I saw in California:

When the return party of Gen. Kearny (which I accompanied) reached the scene of these horrible and tragical occurrences, on the 22d of June, 1847, a halt was ordered, for the purpose of collecting and interring the remains. Near the principal cabins, I saw two bodies, entire with the exception that the abdomens had been cut open and the entrails extracted. Their flesh had been either wasted by famine or evaporated by exposure to the dry atmosphere, and they presented the appearance of mummies. Strewn around the cabins were dislocated and broken bones--skulls, (in some instances sawed asunder with care for the purpose of extracting the brains,)--human skeletons, in short, in every variety of mutilation. A more revolting and appalling spectacle I never witnessed. (Quoted in: https://donnerpartydiary.com/after.html)

This sensational claim was never corroborated. The cabin and its contents were, conveniently from Bryant's perspective, burned shortly after his visit. Since the immigrants sheltering at the lake cabins were not nearly as threatened as those at Alder Creek, where no human bone fragments have been found, the idea that Bryant found at the lake cabins skulls cracked wide open with brains extracted is, to put it mildly, not credible.

Edward “Ned” Coffeemeyer, a French sailor on leave in California, was a member of the relief parties who rescued survivors at Donner Lake. He is reported to have spread rumors that Lewis Keseberg, quoted above, the last to be rescued, had murdered one of the Donner children, as well as Jacob Wolfinger whom he had left behind in the Utah desert. Coffeemeyer also apparently claimed that Keseberg had suffocated children for food.

The archaeological record does not support any of these wild claims.

Keseberg was never tried for any crime. He prosecuted a successful defamation action against Coffeemeyer and was awarded one dollar in damages.

I have found after-the-fact sources claiming that Keseberg confessed to eating the flesh of people who had passed in the Donner Lake cabins. However, I can find no written document of the time to substantiate this claim.

Contemporary reports indicate that when Keseberg was rescued, he was incapacitated, lying on the floor, and had been in that condition for an extended period. How exactly was this man on the precipice of death supposed to have butchered and prepared other humans for consumption? How did he manage to saw open skulls?

Eastbound along the Truckee River.

Westbound Amtrak approaching Truckee.

Westbound BNSF stacks.

In July 1985, Rick Nelson and his band members died in a plane crash in the piney woods of far northeast Texas. The plane caught fire in mid-air and crashed in flames. Rumors immediately spread that the bandmates had been "free basing" cocaine, which had caused the plane to catch fire.

UPI published a nationwide story that spread the rumor:

WASHINGTON -- Cocaine 'free-basing' is being investigated as the possible cause of a fire that killed rock singer Rick Nelson and six other people during a flight to a New Year's Eve concert in Dallas, The Washington Post reported Wednesday.

The newspaper, citing anonymous sources, said preliminary toxicological reports indicated that Nelson's body 'contained a measurable level of unmetabolized cocaine, which means the drug had not been absorbed into the system at the time of death.'

Cocaine abusers seeking a euphoria stronger than that caused by common inhalation practice free-basing by mixing cocaine with flammable ether or ammonia. The chemicals soon evaporate, and the remaining solids are smoked in a glass pipe over a constant flame. (https://www.upi.com/Archives/1986/01/15/Free-basing-eyed-as-possible-cause-of-Nelson-plane-fire/9807506149200/)

The National Transportation Safety Board's subsequent report found that the fire was likely caused by a malfunctioning heater. (https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1987-05-28-mn-3328-story.html)

Nevertheless, many people believe to this very day that cocaine was the cause of Rick Nelson's death. And you can't disprove it.

Additional examples:

1. Bigfoot -- an ape-like creature purported to inhabit the forests of North America.

2. Oklahoma Octopus -- a giant man-eating freshwater octopus living in various Oklahoma lakes. Because I live in Oklahoma, I have heard this one repeatedly.

3. Sewer Alligators -- reports of alligator sightings in New York City.

Like the claim of Donner Party cannibalism, none of the above can be conclusively proven false.

Legends die hard, and the story of the Donner Party is so ingrained in the American consciousness that it will outlive generations. My own best guess is that there was no cannibalism. The sensational claim was created by someone writing a book, hoping to "juice" sales, then picked up by local gossip and spread like a virus through the small community in Sacramento and beyond. And since no one can prove that cannibalism did not occur, the story must be true.

To see my other posts, go to waltersrail.com.

To see my photographs on Flickr, go to https://www.flickr.com/photos/jpwalters/.

WaltersRail

Friday, September 11, 2026

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Better Late Than Donner (Part Two)

The Author