Iron Horse Trailhead - Santa Clara River Bridge

Nice work! Looking forward to more on this bridge!

Excellent news, Robert. Looking forward to it.

I just measured the span, 198 feet. I believe I have identified the builder and its original location on the Colorado River. More to come

Recent video of the bridge

https://youtu.be/QVzO61rpc3c

I have found in research that this bridge originally was built over the Colorado River and was moved to this location in 1928 to replace the washed out bridge.

Here is a link to a photo of the bridge after the Saint Francis dam collapse. http://hdl.huntington.org/cdm/ref/collection/p16003coll2/id/...

The 1898 bridge was installed over the Santa Clara River in 1928 after the Saint Francis Dam collapse, the original bridge at this location was a wood truss bridge that was completely washed out by the flood of water from the dam, I do not know where this bridge was before this.

Wrong description. This was the SPRR main line from its opening in 1896 until the opening of the Montalvo Cutoff in 1904, at which time the Montalvo/Santa Paula/Fillmore/Piru/Newhall segment became a secondary main. It served the ag industry in the Santa Clara Valley until the '80, when SP started running off ag customers in droves. It was used up as a bypass until the wooden trestle adjoining this through truss washed out in the flood of '76, after which this bridge, the large wooden trestle near the trailer park and various small trestles and other 1890s through trusses were abandoned to Piru in 1986, and the track was used for storage of obsolete 40' boxcars which were eventually dumped into the Great Salt Lake to protect the 1959 causeway from rising lake levels. There are other bridges on this line, some still in service, that are the same age. Heavy freights (and Amtrak) used the line in the '70s before the washout as a bypass during the rehabilitation of the Santa Susana Tunnel, the most traffic the line had ever seen. I was on one of those bypasses, and between the 3% grade up from Piru eastboard, the creaking and groaning bridges (like this one) and the rickety 90 lb. rail, it was white knuckles all the way. This line was never THE Coast Line main for more than four years; the Santa Paula Line was finally completed in 1900, while the Montalvo Cutoff was built a scant four years later. Also, this bridge is still in service; it carries major water mains into the Santa Clarita Valley.