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 using wheeled vehicles running in railway track, tracks, which usually consist of two parallel steel railway track, rails. Rail transport is one of the two primary means of ...

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 ...

on the coast of

Southern California Southern California (commonly shortened to SoCal) is a geographic and Cultural area, cultural List of regions of California, region that generally comprises the southern portion of the U.S. state of California. Its densely populated coastal reg ...

, in northern

San Diego County San Diego County (), officially the County of San Diego, is a county in the southwest corner of the U.S. state of California, north to its border with Mexico. As of the 2020 census, the population was 3,298,634; it is the second-most populous ...

near its border with Orange County. The bridge lies within San Onofre State Beach and gave its nickname to the famed Trestles surfing site at that beach..... The single-track bridge spans San Mateo Creek between the San Clemente Pier station 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 ...

to the south. Part of the LOSSAN Rail Corridor—the only rail connection between San Diego and

Greater Los Angeles Greater Los Angeles is the most populous metropolitan area in the U.S. state of California, encompassing five counties in Southern California extending from Ventura County in the west to San Bernardino County and Riverside County in the eas ...

, and the second busiest rail line in the United States—it is used by approximately 45 trains per day and 2.7 million people per year, including

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 intercity rail service in 46 of the 48 contiguous United Stat ...

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 ''Pacific Surfliner'' is Amtrak's third-busiest service (exceeded in ridership only ...

'' trains, Metrolink

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 passe ...

commuter trains, and

BNSF BNSF Railway is the largest freight railroad in the United States. One of six North American Class I railroads, BNSF has 36,000 employees, of track in 28 states, and over 8,000 locomotives. It has three transcontinental routes that provide ...

freight trains..

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 usually carrying a railroad line. A trestle (sometimes tressel) is a rigid frame used as a support, historically a tripod used to support a st ...

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 largest Class 1 railroads in the United States between 1859 and 1996. The Santa Fe was a pioneer in intermodal freight transport; at vario ...

. Storms caused by the

El Niño EL, El or el may refer to: Arts and entertainment Fictional entities * El, a character from the manga series ''Shugo Chara!'' by Peach-Pit * Eleven (''Stranger Things'') (El), a fictional character in the TV series ''Stranger Things'' * El, fami ...

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 w ...

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 (economics), stimulus package enacted by the 111th U.S. Congress and signed into law by President Barack Obama in February 2009. Developed ...

Design

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

rebar Rebar (short for reinforcement bar or reinforcing bar), known when massed as reinforcing steel or steel reinforcement, is a tension device added to concrete to form ''reinforced concrete'' and reinforced masonry structures to strengthen and aid ...

was protected by an epoxy coating and

calcium Calcium is a chemical element; it has 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 it ...

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 A corrosion inhibitor or anti-corrosive is a chemical compound added to a liquid or gas to decrease the corrosion rate of a metal that comes into contact with the fluid. The effectiveness of a corrosion inhibitor depends on fluid composition and ...

to its

reinforced concrete Reinforced concrete, also called ferroconcrete or ferro-concrete, is a composite material in which concrete's relatively low tensile strength and ductility are compensated for by the inclusion of reinforcement having higher tensile strength or ...

.. 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