Steven D. Johnson Wrote:
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> Curling up again with Signor's Donner Pass book,
> it has occurred to me that that the idea of a
> seasonally-manned fire train, at least one of
> which was kept hot during the season 24 hours a
> day, would create a problem with crews relieving
> each other.
>
> Given that the train(s) were at several remote
> locations over the years, how were the crews
> relieved, and where were they based? Did they
> deadhead to the train? Did the train (unlikely) go
> back to the crew base to get relieved? Or did the
> crews bid in the job and therefore accept the
> conditions of the job; i.e. minimal lodging? One
> picture of a fire train shows a passenger car at
> the end. This I presume would serve as
> "lodging"... but how were they relieved?

There was an article that discussed the operarion of the Donner fire trains in an issue of Trainline, the magazine published by the SPH&TS, several years ago. The article included a number of photos. I have it buried in a box somewhere. You might be able to contact them for a back issue if interested.

As to crewing, the jobs were bulletined for seniority choice at the beginning of the fire season. The crews for each train stayed at each on duty location; i.e., Cisco, Norden, etc. Crew vacancies were covered by the Roseville extra board.