It is beginning to feel like spring in Colorado but just to remind myself that winter may not be over, here is another weather related story:

Portland, Ore., Jan. 7, 1885.—It has been snowing out this way lately. If anyone doubts it let him ask the officers of the Oregon railway and navigation company. He may get an answer that will make him think that he has been struck by an avalanche.

On December 16, a passenger train left here over that road. It got as far east as Booneville, about forty miles. It has been there packed in the snow for twenty days. Doubts are expressed whether the train will get out from the thirty foot drifts before spring, for at present the company seems to be largely dependent upon Providence for the clearing of its buried track. It has not the machinery necessary to fight drifting snow.

The Northern Pacific forces uncovered the track for about 100 miles on the west end of the road and from the east to within about twenty-five miles of the imprisoned cars. The O.R.&N., however, has failed to keep the track clear behind the excavators and in consequence the Northern Pacific snow plows and shovelers are likely to get snowed in.

A hundred and fifty men from the Puget Sound division of the Northern Pacific are now at work behind the blockaded train. A hundred of them shovel and operate the machinery and the rest cut wood for the engines and for the open fires that are necessary to protect the men while they work.

The impression is growing that the O.R.&N. road will not be open for regular travel again this winter unless there is a radical change in the weather or the experienced eastern men of the Northern Pacific, who are accustomed to dealing with snow in its worst shade in Minnesota, Dakota and Montana get charge of the work. So far this winter the Northern Pacific has not been obstructed a day.

Fortunately, the number of people on the unfortunate train is not large, only about twenty-five. Food has been regularly and abundantly sent to them. They have also been supplied with fuel cut from the surrounding forests.

The blockade is considered unprecedented in the history of American railroading. For twenty days a great trunk line has been blocked and all direct communication between Portland and the east shut off. Travelers and the mails now have to go by sea to San Francisco, a by no means pleasant journey at this season, and thence east over the Central Pacific.