A group of 226 travelers from the Midwest to California got caught in a terrible blizzard in the Sierra Nevada mountain range. They could go no further, and were snowbound. You think you know this story, because you've heard of the Donner Party. But this wasn't in 1846, it was 1952, and it wasn't a wagon train, but a railroad train.
A 12-foot-tall snowdrift stopped the train called City of San Francisco at 6,880 feet of altitude. The passeners of the 15-car train were buried in snow for three days. Knowing that snowplows would come, they patiently passed the time at first. But then the battery-powered lights went out, and eventually the heat failed as well. Portable heaters belched out carbon monoxide, and the train's food ran out. Meanwhile, the snowplows trying to reach them broke down, as did a rescue train. Read about the ordeal of the City of San Francisco passengers at Smithsonian. The story includes a contemporary newsreel.
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