A tale of 7 tunnels: Tunnel #4. The Virginia & Truckee's Locomotive #29 bursts out of the east portal of Tunnel #4 with a freight headed for Virginia City.
Known as the "Yellow Jacket Tunnel", this was the 4th of 5 tunnels on the line from Carson City to Virginia City, and there were two more tunnels in Virginia City itself. This particular tunnel is 465 ft long and is located above Gold Hill Depot. The grade going uphill to VC is 2.1%....but you could probably tell that from the vertical exhaust plume. This locomotive is working pretty hard and not going very fast. On the original V&T, this tunnel was lined with wooden timbers....and of course, most of the original V&T engines were wood-BURNERS. Yeah, they burned up the tunnel timbers at least a couple of times back in the day. When the tunnel was reopened for the new V&T in 1987, all of the internal bracing was done with welded steel. They no longer worry about fires on this line, but the exhaust fumes can still get a little intense in there as the train struggles up the hill to VC.