Remembering the Snowball Special, a Bay Area train to Tahoe


The last Snowball Special left the station long ago, but you can still take a train to the mountains.
 
The Snowball was a novelty train and another vanished wonder from the peak era of Northern California train travel. A ski train that catered to day trippers in the 1930s, it departed Oakland at midnight for the Sierra Nevada so people could play in the snow all day and then return that night.

Nothing that convenient runs today. There’s just one daily train that goes all the way to the mountains, the California Zephyr, which leaves the Bay Area shortly after 9 a.m., reaching Truckee in the afternoon — if it’s on time. 

The Snowball Special, train No. 4132, passing through Truckee in January 1938.

Courtesy of the Truckee-Donner Historical Society

According to Trains.com, snow trains were a Depression-era creation aimed to increase passenger ridership. An advertisement placed in the Oakland Tribune in 1940 promoted the Snowball Special for $4.45 round trip.

An advertisement for the Snowball Special that ran in the Oakland Tribune in January 1940. Newspaper clipping via Newspapers.com.

An advertisement for the Snowball Special that ran in the Oakland Tribune in January 1940. Newspaper clipping via Newspapers.com.

Newspapers.com



The Southern Pacific railroad began operating the Snowball Special to Lake Tahoe in 1928 and semi-regularly to Donner and Truckee starting in 1931.

The Sugar Bowl Resort, where the Snowballs stopped, fills in some of the picture on its website: “The trains would depart from Oakland at midnight and were equipped with all the comforts a skier might need. Of course, there was a well-stocked bar car so travelers could party through the night. Arriving at Sugar Bowl early the next morning, skiers could enjoy the mountain for the day, returning exhausted on the train that evening.”

Skiers arriving at Sugar Bowl on the Snowball Special on Jan. 16, 1947.

Skiers arriving at Sugar Bowl on the Snowball Special on Jan. 16, 1947.

Courtesy of Donner Summit Historical Society

Cars and roads killed the demand for the Snowball Special, although other winter-only trains have traveled the route since then. (The 15-mile railroad from Truckee to Lake Tahoe was torn out in 1944.) In the book “Donner Summit” by Arthur Sommers, the author wrote that the ski train was popular until World War II.

Versions of a seasonal service known by different names, mostly as the Reno Fun Train, ran from the Bay Area to Reno until 2017.

Skiers at the Suger Bowl Lodge in Tahoe National Forest, California.

Skiers at the Suger Bowl Lodge in Tahoe National Forest, California.


Historical/Corbis via Getty Images

View of an unidentified skier on Mt Disney (formerly Hemlock Peak) at the Sugar Bowl Ski Resort.

View of an unidentified skier on Mt Disney (formerly Hemlock Peak) at the Sugar Bowl Ski Resort.


Paul Ryan/Getty Images

Skiers outside the Sugar Bowl Lodge and an unidentified skier on Mount Disney, formerly Hemlock Peak. (Historical/Corbis via Getty Images/Paul Ryan/Getty Images)

Winter novelty trains are not entirely gone; Amtrak offers the Winter Park Express for weekend service between Denver and a resort two hours west of the city.

The Bay Area, on the other hand, is left with limited train service and a difficult drive to reach the mountains. 





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