AP Features, February 2nd, 2008
Dozens of passengers remained stranded on a train in the Sierra Nevada mountains Saturday after a large snow plow fell through the tracks and blocked the rail road, officials said.
Two Amtrak trains and about 400 had passengers were initially stranded by Friday night's blockage, but one train was pulled to Reno and the 165 passengers onboard were put up in a hotel, Amtrak spokeswoman Karina Romero said.
The other train, which was headed from Emeryville to Chicago, remained in the mountains. About 60 people were taken by bus back to the San Francisco Bay area overnight and 155 stayed on the train, waiting for the line to reopen at around 5:30 a.m., Romero said.
Those passengers slept in their seats or in reserved sleeping cars for the night. Romero said the train had heating and lights and passengers were given food. No injuries had been reported.
A Union Pacific spokeswoman, Zoe Richmond, confirmed that the company's equipment was blocking the tracks but had no other information on the incident. She said the West Coast's stormy weather has hammered Union Pacific's tracks so far in 2008.
Crews in Oregon have been working for two weeks to clear a mudslide that dumped up to 20 feet of mud and rocks on tracks used by an Amtrak line to shuttle passengers between Los Angeles and Seattle, Richmond said. Service on that line has been halted since the mudslide, she said.
"The start of the year has just been plagued with weather-related issues," Richmond said.
