Snow train to North Shore being talked about
By Ed Fletcher, Sacramento Bee
Over its nearly 70-year run, the Denver Ski Train helped link hundreds of thousands of city dwellers with Colorado’s rich winter sport assets.
Squaw Valley USA’s new president and CEO, Andy Wirth, likes the idea of offering San Francisco and Sacramento area residents a mass transit option for travel to Lake Tahoe.
So he has begun talking to operators of Northstar and other North Lake Tahoe resorts about a ski train from the Bay Area to Truckee.
“There is great promise,” said Wirth, who five months into his new job is up to his elbows overhauling his resort.
Passenger rail would give visitors to the Sierra Nevada a viable – even entertaining – option to navigating roads, often in inhospitable weather.
For those who might not want to wait for Wirth’s idea to come to fruition, Amtrak already operates once-a-day passenger service along the I-80 corridor. The eastbound California Zephyr begins in Emeryville. Roughly 52 hours later it terminates in Chicago. Truckee is one of the stops.