Trestles Bridge, more formally known as Railroad Bridge 207.6 or the San Mateo Creek Bridge, is a low

railroad Rail transport (also known as train transport) is a means of transport that transfers passengers and goods on wheeled vehicles running on rails, which are incorporated in tracks. In contrast to road transport, where the vehicles run on a pre ...

viaduct A viaduct is a specific type of bridge that consists of a series of arches, piers or columns supporting a long elevated railway or road. Typically a viaduct connects two points of roughly equal elevation, allowing direct overpass across a wide v ...

on the coast of

Southern California Southern California (commonly shortened to SoCal) is a geographic and Cultural area, cultural region that generally comprises the southern portion of the U.S. state of California. It includes the Los Angeles metropolitan area, the second most po ...

, in northern

San Diego County San Diego County (), officially the County of San Diego, is a county in the southwestern corner of the U.S. state of California. As of the 2020 census, the population was 3,298,634, making it California's second-most populous county and the fi ...

near its border with

Orange County Orange County most commonly refers to: *Orange County, California, part of the Los Angeles metropolitan area Orange County may also refer to: U.S. counties *Orange County, Florida, containing Orlando *Orange County, Indiana *Orange County, New ...

. The bridge lies within

San Onofre State Beach San Onofre State Beach (''San Onofre'', Spanish for " St. Onuphrius") is a state park in San Diego County, California. The beach is south of San Clemente on Interstate 5 at Basilone Road. The state park is leased to the state of California by ...

and gave its nickname to the famed

Trestles ATLAS-I (Air Force Weapons Lab Transmission-Line Aircraft Simulator), better known as Trestle, was a unique electromagnetic pulse (EMP) generation and testing apparatus built between 1972 and 1980 during the Cold War at Sandia National Labora ...

surfing site at that beach.....

Usage

The bridge, carrying a single railway track, forms part of the only rail connection between San Diego and the

Greater Los Angeles Greater Los Angeles is the second-largest metropolitan region in the United States with a population of 18.5 million in 2021, encompassing five counties in Southern California extending from Ventura County in the west to San Bernardino Coun ...

area. The bridge is part of the LOSSAN Corridor, the second busiest segment of railway in the United States. Approximately 45 trains per day and 2.7 million people per year travel on the bridge; it is used by

Amtrak The National Railroad Passenger Corporation, Trade name, doing business as Amtrak () , is the national Passenger train, passenger railroad company of the United States. It operates inter-city rail service in 46 of the 48 contiguous United Stat ...

's ''

Pacific Surfliner The ''Pacific Surfliner'' is a passenger train service serving the communities on the coast of Southern California between San Diego and San Luis Obispo. The service carried 2,924,117 passengers during fiscal year 2016, a 3.4% increase from F ...

'' trains, the

Orange County Line The Orange County Line is a commuter rail line run by Metrolink from Los Angeles through Orange County to Oceanside in San Diego County, connecting with the Coaster commuter rail service to San Diego. The Orange County Line carries passenger ...

of the Metrolink

commuter rail Commuter rail, or suburban rail, is a passenger rail transport service that primarily operates within a metropolitan area, connecting commuters to a central city from adjacent suburbs or commuter towns. Generally commuter rail systems are con ...

service, and freight trains on the

BNSF Railway BNSF Railway is one of the largest freight railroads in North America. One of seven North American Class I railroads, BNSF has 35,000 employees, of track in 28 states, and nearly 8,000 locomotives. It has three transcontinental routes that ...

.. The bridge lies between the

San Clemente Pier station San Clemente Pier station is a passenger train station near the San Clemente Pier in San Clemente, California, United States. The station is lightly used – only four Amtrak ''Pacific Surfliner'' trains per day stop at the station (two trains i ...

to the north and the

Oceanside Transit Center Oceanside Transit Center is a major railway interchange in Oceanside, California, serving both intercity and suburban/commuter services. The station is used by Amtrak on the route of its ''Pacific Surfliner'' service between San Diego and San Lu ...

to the south. It crosses the San Mateo Creek.

History

A railroad first bridged the creek in this location in 1891. In 1941, a wooden

trestle bridge A trestle bridge is a bridge composed of a number of short spans supported by closely spaced frames. A trestle (sometimes tressel) is a rigid frame used as a support, historically a tripod used to support a stool or a pair of isosceles trian ...

long was built in this location. The nearby waves had already been surfed as early as 1937, and by 1951, local surfers had named the beach and its surf break "Trestles", after the bridge there. In 1992, the railway line containing the bridge was purchased by the North County Transportation District from the

Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway The Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway , often referred to as the Santa Fe or AT&SF, was one of the larger railroads in the United States. The railroad was chartered in February 1859 to serve the cities of Atchison, Kansas, Atchison and Top ...

. Storms caused by the

El Niño El Niño (; ; ) is the warm phase of the El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO) and is associated with a band of warm ocean water that develops in the central and east-central equatorial Pacific (approximately between the International Date L ...

of 1998 damaged the bridge, leading a center section of the bridge long to be replaced by concrete and leaving separated wooden sections long in the south and long in the north. By 2007, inspectors determined that the northern segment of the bridge needed replacement. Salt from the beach environment had rotted the wooden support beams, they had been damaged by fires set by beachgoers, the

creosote Creosote is a category of carbonaceous chemicals formed by the distillation of various tars and pyrolysis of plant-derived material, such as wood or fossil fuel. They are typically used as preservatives or antiseptics. Some creosote types were ...

protecting the beams had been worn away, and the bridge did not meet seismic standards. Trains could not travel on the bridge at full speeds, and frequent bridge maintenance was costing US$250,000 per year.. Construction began in 2010,. and a new concrete replacement for this bridge segment opened in 2012 at a cost of eight million dollars, paid by federal funds from the

American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA) (), nicknamed the Recovery Act, was a stimulus package enacted by the 111th U.S. Congress and signed into law by President Barack Obama in February 2009. Developed in response to the Gr ...

Design

In order to protect the 2012 bridge segment against corrosion, its

rebar Rebar (short for reinforcing bar), known when massed as reinforcing steel or reinforcement steel, is a steel bar used as a Tension (physics), tension device in reinforced concrete and reinforced masonry structures to strengthen and aid the concr ...

was protected by an epoxy coating and

calcium Calcium is a chemical element with the symbol Ca and atomic number 20. As an alkaline earth metal, calcium is a reactive metal that forms a dark oxide-nitride layer when exposed to air. Its physical and chemical properties are most similar to ...

nitrite The nitrite polyatomic ion, ion has the chemical formula . Nitrite (mostly sodium nitrite) is widely used throughout chemical and pharmaceutical industries. The nitrite anion is a pervasive intermediate in the nitrogen cycle in nature. The name ...

was added as a

corrosion inhibitor In chemistry, a corrosion inhibitor or anti-corrosive is a chemical compound that, when added to a liquid or gas, decreases the corrosion rate of a material, typically a metal or an alloy, that comes into contact with the fluid. The effectiveness ...

to its

reinforced concrete Reinforced concrete (RC), also called reinforced cement concrete (RCC) and ferroconcrete, is a composite material in which concrete's relatively low tensile strength and ductility are compensated for by the inclusion of reinforcement having hig ...

.. See in particular example 4.2, San Mateo Creek Rail Bridge 207.6, pp. 195–196. The new concrete supports for the bridge structure are etched with letters spelling "Trestles", the nickname of the bridge.

References

{{Coord, 33.38659, -117.59385, type:landmark_region:US-CA, display=title Bridges in San Diego County, California Railroad bridges in California Bridges completed in 1941 Concrete bridges in California Wooden bridges in California Trestle bridges in the United States