The line was built to compete with the Southern Pacific Railroad, which at the time held a nearly complete monopoly on Northern California rail service.

The route derives its name from its crossing of the Sierra Nevada, where it follows both the North and Middle Forks of the Feather River.

In the 1860s, Arthur W. Keddie began surveying in the Feather River Canyon, in order to find a suitable route for such an artery.

In the Sierra, a total absence of roads, along with rockslides in the Feather River Canyon and extreme temperature fluctuation, made working conditions uncomfortable and dangerous.

Nonetheless, progress inched further, although slower than anticipated, due to the challenges caused by the need for many long tunnels on the Sierra portion of the route.

[1] When the line was finished in 1909 it spanned a total of 927 miles (1,492 km), and had been built at the then ferociously expensive cost of $75 million (equivalent to $2.54 billion in 2023).

It featured a ruling grade of 1%, making it only half as steep as Southern Pacific's Donner Pass line, its primary competitor.

The construction of the Inside Gateway line, completed in 1931 between Keddie and Bieber, California, failed to alleviate the problem.

Yet in 1936, in spite of falling traffic, the Western Pacific rehabilitated the Feather River Route using RFC funds.

In response to this, the Western Pacific installed Centralized Traffic Control between Oroville and Portola, California, in the Sierra Nevada, during 1944 and 1945.

The Zephyr, which operated over three railroads on its route between Oakland and Chicago, gained immense recognition but failed to last past the year 1970, when lack of riders and unprofitability forced the Western Pacific to abandon the service.

[7] After the acquisition, the Union Pacific truncated the Feather River Route to the meeting points of the two lines near Sacramento, California and Winnemucca, Nevada.

East of Winnemucca, the former Feather River Route has been combined with lines from the former Denver and Rio Grande Western Railroad to form the Central Corridor.