Railroad meeting to discuss vanished buildings on Donner route

The Placer-Sierra Railroad Heritage Society meeting on Tuesday, April 28, will present the story of long-gone buildings and structures along the Central Pacific Railroad's route over Donner Pass from Roseville to Truckee. Local railroad historian and author Roger Staab will use old photographs to show the changes that took place over the years along the route. Some facilities vanished as fewer service stops were required for the new locomotives and as local passenger trains were discontinued. Also, as the fruit industry declined, many of the buildings that serviced that business vanished. Some examples of the vanished structures are the world's largest ice manufacturing plant in Roseville, the 26-stall roundhouse in Rocklin, the old Auburn Depot with a saloon on the ground floor, the massive Nevada County Gold Quartz Monument in Colfax, the building at the site of a locomotive boiler explosion in Dutch Flat and the stone roundhouse with a covered turntable in Truckee. See photos of these and other structures with their interesting background stories at 7 p.m. Tuesday at the Auburn Veterans Memorial Hall at 100 East Street. The public is welcome. For questions, email chuck.spinks@outlook.com.