Keddie Wye: Western Pacific Bridges, Last Spike & Inside Gateway

Last revised: August 27, 2026

The Keddie Wye is a three-legged railroad junction over Spanish Creek at Keddie, Plumas County, California. Two of the legs stand on steel trestles. The third dives through a hillside. Where the two bridges meet, the main line punches into another bore. Plumas County calls it one of the “7 Wonders of the Railroad World”: the only wye whose two bridged legs join at a tunnel. That is a local claim, not a survey of every wye on earth, but the geometry is real, and it is still in daily freight service.

What you photograph from State Routes 70/89 is two eras stacked. The west (main-line) trestle is 1909 Western Pacific—the span where track gangs from Oakland and Salt Lake City met on November 1, 1909 and a foreman drove an ordinary iron spike. The north trestle and the closing tunnel are 1931, built so WP could swing north to Bieber and a handshake with the Great Northern. That north line is the High Line. Together with GN’s Bend–Bieber extension it became the Inside Gateway. Union Pacific still owns the Feather River main (Canyon Subdivision). BNSF owns Keddie–Bieber (Gateway Subdivision) and holds trackage rights on UP from Keddie toward Stockton.

Western Pacific publicity photo Bicentennial GP40s 1976 and 1776 on the Keddie Wye coming off the High Line circa 1976

Western Pacific publicity photograph: Bicentennial GP40s #1976 and #1776 coming off the High Line connection at the Keddie Wye, circa 1976. American-Rails.com collection.

On this page: At a glance · How to read the wye · Arthur Keddie · Last spike, 1909 · Inside Gateway, 1931 · Bridges and tunnels · California Zephyr · UP, BNSF, and the overlook

At a Glance

Item	Detail
What it is	Railroad wye at Keddie, Plumas County, California: two legs on trestles over Spanish Creek, one closing leg in tunnel
Coordinates (approx.)	40.018° N, 120.958° W
Namesake	Arthur W. Keddie (1842–1924), Scottish-born surveyor of Quincy and long regarded as the "father of the Western Pacific"
1909 work	WP main-line Spanish Creek trestle; last spike November 1, 1909 (foreman Leonard D. Tomasso / Leonardo di Tomasso). First spike had been driven at Third and Union Streets, Oakland, January 2, 1906
1931 work	North trestle, Tunnel No. 32, and the High Line Keddie–Bieber (112 miles). Completes the three-legged wye
Inside Gateway	WP High Line + GN Bend–Bieber (91.6 miles). Bieber spike November 10, 1931 (WP president Harry Adams, GN president Ralph Budd). Marketing name dated January 1950 for the WP–GN–Santa Fe through route
Summit comparison	WP over Beckwourth Pass / Chilcoot Tunnel ~5,000 ft vs. SP Donner Pass ~7,000 ft; WP cataloged a 1% compensated maximum grade
Today	UP Canyon Subdivision (former WP Oakland–Salt Lake main through the Feather River Canyon). BNSF Gateway Subdivision (Keddie–Bieber High Line, purchased under UP/SP merger conditions, 1995–96)
Best public view	Highway 70/89 pullout north of the junction, looking down on both trestles. Track is private railroad property

How to read the wye

A wye is a triangular junction. It lets a train reverse direction or choose among three routes without a turntable. Most wyes sit on dirt. Keddie’s sits in a canyon.

West leg (1909): original WP main toward Oroville, the Sacramento Valley, and Oakland. Spanish Creek trestle. Railroad west is geographically down-canyon toward the valley.
North leg (1931): High Line toward Indian Falls, Greenville, Westwood, and Bieber. The second trestle, often called the Indian Creek / High Line span. BNSF today.
Southeast leg (1931): the closer of the triangle, in Tunnel No. 32, tying the High Line to the Portola / Salt Lake side of the main.
Tunnel No. 31: original main-line bore just northwest of where the two bridges join. Trains railroad-east toward Portola come out of this hole onto the 1909 trestle.
Keddie Yard: south of the wye (railroad east) on the Portola side of the main, not on the bridges.

Most postcard views are from the highway to the north, looking southeast: a train off the High Line swinging onto the 1909 span toward Oakland, or a main-line train coming out of Tunnel 31 and taking the trestle railroad-east. The closing tunnel is the hole you do not always notice.

The two bridges are steel trestles—tower bents and plate-girder approaches with a truss span over the creek—not stone viaducts. Published lengths differ by source. Figures long used on this site, and still the ones most railfan guides repeat, are about 569 feet long and 176 feet high for the 1909 Spanish Creek (west) span and about 447 feet long and 118 feet high for the 1931 High Line span. Treat those as the working numbers, not a shop drawing.

Arthur Keddie and the canyon

Arthur W. Keddie was born in Scotland in 1842, reached California in 1863, and settled at Quincy in 1864. He was a county surveyor, not a New York financier. Mapping a wagon road down the North Fork of the Feather, he saw what Collis Huntington’s Central Pacific / Southern Pacific did not want built: a Sierra crossing at Beckwourth Pass, more than 2,000 feet lower than Donner, with a river-level line that could be held to a 1 percent grade.

Keddie spent decades trying to turn the survey into a railroad. Early companies (including an Oroville & Virginia City scheme that actually started dirt in 1869) died. Huntington blocked canyon franchises so SP would keep the only Sierra rail line. In 1902–03 Keddie and San Francisco lawyer Walter J. Bartnett put a new franchise in George Jay Gould’s pocket. Gould, running the Rio Grande after Jay Gould, needed an independent outlet from Salt Lake City to San Francisco Bay. The Western Pacific Railway was organized March 3, 1903. Bartnett was the first president. Edward T. Jeffery of the Rio Grande took the chair in 1905 once Gould admitted paternity of the project. Keddie’s name went on the station and the junction, which is the honor that mattered.

The construction bargain Gould accepted was expensive on purpose: stay within a 1 percent compensated grade and keep curves from running wild. That is why the Feather River Route is a canyon railroad of bridges and tunnels (WP advertised 41 steel bridges and 44 tunnels on the finished road) instead of a Donner-style climb.

Last spike, November 1, 1909

WP spiked its first rail at Third and Union Streets in Oakland on January 2, 1906. East- and west-bound track gangs met on the new steel bridge across Spanish Creek near Keddie on November 1, 1909, about milepost 280. There was no Promontory pageant. Ranking officers were in New York. Foreman Leonard D. Tomasso (also given as Leonardo di Tomasso) drove an ordinary iron spike. The audience was the two gangs, an Oroville photographer who had haunted the camps for weeks, and two local women with their little girls who happened by in a buggy. Arthur Keddie, then 67, spoke from the Quincy courthouse steps. Oakland threw a parade. Freight started December 1, 1909.

That 1909 bridge is the west leg of today’s wye. It was a main-line crossing, not yet a three-way junction. On the fortieth anniversary, November 1, 1949, Tomasso came back and drove a ruby spike at the same spot—by then a twin bridge, because the High Line had added the north span. The California Zephyr stood nose-to-nose with WP steam #94. A quieter centennial observance was held on the wye on November 1, 2009.

Western Pacific California Zephyr eastbound crossing Spanish Creek at Keddie California Labor Day weekend September 1969 Drew Jacksich

“Labor Day weekend, September 1969, Western Pacific’s California Zephyr is eastbound crossing Spanish Creek at Keddie, CA. Only a few months remained before this train passed into history.” Drew Jacksich photo.

The High Line and the Inside Gateway, 1931

Great Northern wanted a California connection that did not belong to Southern Pacific. Western Pacific wanted Portland and Seattle traffic that SP and UP already divided. In 1930–31 GN built south from Bend, Oregon, to Bieber, California (91.6 miles). WP built north from Keddie to Bieber (112 miles)—the High Line, WP’s Fourth Subdivision. Completing it meant a second crossing of Spanish Creek and a short tunnel through the east hillside so the new track could join both directions of the old main. That is the wye.

A formal spike was driven at Bieber on November 10, 1931. WP president Harry Adams and GN president Ralph Budd shook hands from the pilots of WP 204 and GN 3351. WP later bought a few miles of SP around Westwood so the 112-mile Keddie–Bieber line was entirely its own. The marketing name Inside Gateway dates to January 1950, when WP, GN, and Santa Fe advertised through freight from the Pacific Northwest to Southern California—GN to Bieber, WP Keddie–Stockton, Santa Fe south from Stockton through the San Joaquin and Tehachapi. It never broke SP’s hold on the I-5 corridor. It remained a useful competitive hole in the map, which is why the trestles are still there.

Union Pacific 4-8-4 844 about to cross Spanish Creek trestle at Keddie Wye May 2 2009 Drew Jacksich

Union Pacific 4-8-4 #844 about to cross the Spanish Creek trestle at the Keddie Wye, May 2, 2009. Drew Jacksich photo.

WP entered bankruptcy again in 1935 and came out on World War II traffic. After 1970, Alfred E. Perlman—the same Perlman who had run New York Central, not “Pearlman”—took the WP presidency and squeezed a last profitable decade out of the independent. Union Pacific took control in late 1982. Railfans assumed the Feather River and the High Line would be surplus the day SP’s Donner line sat in the same company. UP kept the canyon as a second Sierra crossing. The High Line was another matter.

Bridges, tunnels, and what you are looking at

Piece	Built	Role	Notes
Spanish Creek trestle (west / main-line leg)	1909	WP Oakland–Salt Lake main; last-spike site	Commonly listed ~569 ft long, ~176 ft above the creek. Steel towers, plate girders, truss over the water. Ruby spike 1949; centennial 2009
High Line trestle (north leg)	1931	Keddie–Bieber	Commonly listed ~447 ft long, ~118 ft high. Completes the visual Y from the highway
Tunnel No. 31	1909 main	Main line at the northwest meeting of the two bridges	The hole #844 is leaving in the May 2009 photograph
Tunnel No. 32	1931	Southeast closing leg of the wye	Ties High Line to the Portola side without another creek crossing
Keddie Yard	WP era	South / railroad-east of the bridges	Helper and meet territory on the main, not part of the trestle photograph

Western Pacific GP20s 2001 and 2009 leading Burlington Northern C636s 4365 and 4361 off the High Line at Keddie Wye May 7 1972

WP GP20s #2001 and #2009 lead Burlington Northern C636s #4365 and #4361—ex-Spokane, Portland & Seattle six-motors—a GP35, and a WP U-boat off the High Line at the Keddie Wye, May 7, 1972.

Amtrak California Zephyr westbound over Spanish Creek trestle at Keddie Wye led by P42DCs 199 and 113 August 12 2008 Drew Jacksich

Amtrak California Zephyr on Spanish Creek, P42DCs #199 and #113, August 12, 2008. The train’s regular Sierra crossing is Donner Pass; this is a Feather River move, not the CZ’s advertised route. Drew Jacksich photo.

Union Pacific, BNSF, and the highway overlook

UP poured money into the former WP Salt Lake–Oakland main even while the canyon kept doing what canyons do: rock, fire, and high water. Donner remains the Overland passenger and much of the hot freight crossing; the Feather River is the second Sierra machine, UP’s Canyon Subdivision, Portola through Keddie to Oroville.

The High Line changed owners as a merger sop. When UP took Southern Pacific (agreement 1995, control 1996), BNSF’s price for not killing the case included purchase of UP’s Keddie–Bieber line—about $30 million in the implementing papers—plus trackage rights on UP from Keddie toward Stockton. That is BNSF’s Gateway Subdivision, the old Inside Gateway under a new reporting mark. The live page dated the sale 1997; the condition was the UP/SP deal of 1995–96.

From the highway you still see both owners. A UP manifest on the 1909 span. A BNSF stack or grain train coming off the north trestle and taking Tunnel 32 toward Portola, or dropping onto the main toward Oroville. Keddie the town is a handful of houses. The junction is the landmark.

The overlook is on public highway. The bridges, tunnels, and yard are railroad property. Plumas County’s visitor material lists Keddie among its railroad “wonders” and describes access; it does not give you permission to walk the trestle. Stay on the highway side of the fence.

Western Pacific F7A 913-A exiting the tunnel at Keddie Wye heading to the yard August 1969 Drew Jacksich

Western Pacific F7A #913-A exits out of the tunnel along the Keddie Wye in Keddie, California as it heads back to the nearby yard during August of 1969. Drew Jacksich photo.

Sources

Western Pacific Railroad Museum / Feather River Rail Society, “50 Candles” company history (Keddie the surveyor; Bartnett and Gould; last spike November 1, 1909, Tomasso; first spike Oakland January 2, 1906)
WP Mileposts, November 1949 and November 1954 (ruby spike; Tomasso; two women and children as 1909 audience)
WP Train Sheet archive (Keddie–Bieber 112 miles; Bieber spike November 10, 1931, Adams and Budd, WP 204 / GN 3351; “Inside Gateway” name January 1950)
Plumas County Museum / NoeHill (last spike MP 280.15; “7 Wonders” wording; Keddie biography, 1842–1924)
UP/SP–BNSF implementing agreement, September 25, 1995 (Keddie–Bieber sale, $30 million; Keddie–Stockton trackage rights)
Drew Jacksich photographs as captioned on the live page (CZ 1969, F7A 1969, UP 844 2009, Amtrak 2008)

Facebook X Pinterest Tumblr Reddit WhatsApp Messenger