The Keddie Wye is a railroad junction in the form of a
wye on the
Union Pacific Railroad
The Union Pacific Railroad , legally Union Pacific Railroad Company and often called simply Union Pacific, is a freight-hauling railroad that operates 8,300 locomotives over routes in 23 U.S. states west of Chicago and New Orleans. Union Paci ...
in
Plumas County, California, United States. Located at the town of
Keddie, it joins the east-west
Feather River Route
The Feather River Route is a rail line that was built and operated by the Western Pacific Railroad. It was constructed between 1906 and 1909, and connects the cities of Oakland, California, and Salt Lake City, Utah. The line was built to compet ...
and the "Inside Gateway"—formally, the
BNSF
BNSF Railway is one of the largest freight railroads in North America. One of seven North American Class I railroads, BNSF has 35,000 employees, of track in 28 states, and nearly 8,000 locomotives. It has three transcontinental routes that ...
Gateway Subdivision—which runs north to
Bieber.
A notable feat of railroad engineering, it is the world's only wye with two legs on bridges that meet in a tunnel. The west and north legs of the wye are on bridges over Spanish Creek, and the southeast leg runs through a tunnel (Tunnel No. 32). Just to the northwest, where the two bridged legs join, is Tunnel No. 31.
The wye and the town are named for
Arthur W. Keddie, who purchased the survey rights and the right to build a railroad through the
Feather River Canyon
Feathers are epidermal growths that form a distinctive outer covering, or plumage, on both avian (bird) and some non-avian dinosaurs and other archosaurs. They are the most complex integumentary structures found in vertebrates and a premier ...
from
George Jay Gould, the son of
Jay Gould
Jason Gould (; May 27, 1836 – December 2, 1892) was an American railroad magnate and financial speculator who is generally identified as one of the robber barons of the Gilded Age. His sharp and often unscrupulous business practices made him ...
.
History
The
Western Pacific Railroad (now part of the Union Pacific) built the tracks along the
Feather River
The Feather River is the principal tributary of the Sacramento River, in the Sacramento Valley of Northern California. The river's main stem is about long. Its length to its most distant headwater tributary is just over . The main stem Feather ...
in 1909 to complete a route from the
San Francisco Bay Area
The San Francisco Bay Area, often referred to as simply the Bay Area, is a populous region surrounding the San Francisco, San Pablo, and Suisun Bay estuaries in Northern California. The Bay Area is defined by the Association of Bay Area Go ...
to
Salt Lake City, Utah, providing an alternate to the
Southern Pacific's route over
Donner Pass
Donner Pass is a mountain pass in the northern Sierra Nevada, above Donner Lake and Donner Memorial State Park about west of Truckee, California. Like the Sierra Nevada themselves, the pass has a steep approach from the east and a gradual appr ...
. Keddie was the site of the "last spike" ceremony held on November 1, 1909.
The Feather River route was preferred by some over the Donner Pass route through the
Sierra Nevada because the high point of the former (the Chilcoot Tunnel under
Beckwourth Pass
Beckwourth Pass is the lowest mountain pass in the Sierra Nevada mountain range at an elevation of .
Geography
Beckwourth Pass is located at the eastern edge of Sierra Valley at Chilcoot-Vinton, California on the border between Plumas County ...
) is at a lower elevation — about as opposed to — and most of the route is at a gentler grade than the line over Donner Pass.
Construction started on the branch running north to Bieber in 1930 and was completed in 1931, along with the north and southeast legs of the wye. This allowed the Western Pacific to diverge from its east-west route (along the west leg of the wye) and go north to an interchange with the
Great Northern Railway (now
BNSF Railway) and its traffic from the
Pacific Northwest
The Pacific Northwest (sometimes Cascadia, or simply abbreviated as PNW) is a geographic region in western North America bounded by its coastal waters of the Pacific Ocean to the west and, loosely, by the Rocky Mountains to the east. Tho ...
.
Railfanning
The Keddie Wye is a favorite
railfan
A railfan, rail buff or train buff (American English), railway enthusiast, railway buff or trainspotter ( Australian/British English), or ferroequinologist is a person who is recreationally interested in trains and rail transport systems.
Rai ...
spot and is part of Plumas County's ''7 Wonders of the Railroad World''.
Access to the site is described in the county travel guide.
California Zephyr
The ''California Zephyr'' is a passenger train operated by Amtrak between Chicago and the San Francisco Bay Area (at Emeryville), via Omaha, Denver, Salt Lake City, and Reno. At , it is Amtrak's longest daily route, and second-longest overall ...
'' at Keddie Wye (Aug 1969)
File:Some More of Roger Puta's UP Freight Trains - Elevation (26627764473).jpg, Westbound train waits for northbound train to clear Tunnel 31 (Mar 1983)
References
External links
Western Pacific Railroad Museum in Portola, California*
Keddie Wye, Quincy, California - A showcase of engineering might that was also symbolic of westward expansion
{{coord, 40.01844, -120.95760, type:landmark_region:US, format=dms, display=title
Western Pacific Railroad
Geography of Plumas County, California
Transportation in Plumas County, California
Union Pacific Railroad bridges
Railroad tunnels in California
Rail junctions in the United States