The Big Snow

Disaster Is Brewing In Donner Pass...

Winter in the High Sierras has always been a challenge, but this time is different. Global warming has spawned an endless series of blizzards the likes of which have never been seen before. Even the proud Union Pacific is reeling from the onslaught.

But the relentless storms and equipment breakdowns are only the beginning. They face a crisis at Donner Summit: a passenger train wrecked in the most dangerous, inhospitable terrain in all of railroading.

The railroad's Maintenance Of Way men, exhausted and short of equipment, must brave bitter cold and white-out conditions to rescue the survivors, in a raging blizzard, with the real danger of avalanches striking at any moment.

More than five hundred lives hang in the balance...

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Stories of the railroads and railroad men have always held a special place in dramatic fiction. Here is one such tale - which combines the lore and mystique of the high iron with tomorrows headlines in a grim warning of ecological disaster.

Hard, weary men and women cope with extremes of heat and cold, rain and snow to repair tracks and clean up wrecks, answering the call when Nature unleashes its worst. Their labors are born in fires, floods, earthquakes, and blizzards, and they tread where weaker men dare not go. Theirs is an endless, seemingly hopeless task for which they rarely receive the recognition they deserve, yet without them the railroads - and the nation - would grind to a halt. They labor unseen - the Unsung Heroes of railroading - to uphold the time honored tradition that the trains will always get through.

Here, at last, is their story.