Emigrant Chinese laborers constructed the railroad tunnels above Truckee, California, with picks and black powder in the 1860s as part of the Transcontinental Railroad. Today, freight trains and Amtrak passenger trains still pass through the town.

After the merger of Union Pacific and Southern Pacific railroads in the mid-1990s, a portion of the railroad line near Donner Summit was decommissioned and the tracks and ties were removed. Yet the abandoned tunnels still remain.

Today graffiti artists leave their mark on the concrete walls that once protected the tracks from winter avalanches.