El Dorado County, California Bridges: Southern Pacific Viaduct across Weber Creek (3)

February 2013 (38.7084 Degrees, -120.8136 Degrees) Southern Pacific Viaduct

A view of the approach to the Southern Pacific Railway Viaduct which was converted to part of a hiking trail. The Sacramento-Placerville Transportation Corridor (SPTC) Joint Powers Authority purchased the Sacramento-Placerville railroad corridor from the Southern Pacific Railway Corporation in 1991. The 28 mile long segment of the SPTC in El Dorado County extends from Latrobe in the west to Placerville. More information on the trail is available from the SPTC-JPA.

The El Dorado Trail was designated a Millennium Trail by Hillary Clinton in 2000 and there are plans to make it a multi-modal transportation corridor that extends from the western border of El Dorado County all the way to South Lake Tahoe. In 2010, the trestle segment of this trail was awarded the ASCE 2009 History and Heritage Project of the Year.

El Dorado County, California Bridges: Southern Pacific Viaduct across Weber Creek (3) by Mark Yashinsky is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.

El Dorado County, California Bridges: Southern Pacific Viaduct across Weber Creek (2)

February 2013 (38.7084 Degrees, -120.8136 Degrees) Southern Pacific Viaduct

A closer look at the towers on the Southern Pacific Viaduct over Weber Creek. The bridge is stamped with a date of 1903, making it 110 years old. That was the date when the Camino, Placerville, and Lake Tahoe (CPLT) Shortline Railroad was built to haul lumber out of the El Dorado National Forest.  The history of the railway can be found on this Wikepedia Website. 

The CPLT was owned by the Michigan-California Lumber Company. In 1986 the Southern Pacific abandoned the Placerville Branch, eliminating the CPLT's access to a national rail network. Scrapping of the CPLT began in 1986, but fortunately, they didn't scrap this enormous viaduct, which besides a little rust seems as good as new.

El Dorado County, California Bridges: Southern Pacific Viaduct across Weber Creek (2) by Mark Yashinsky is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.

El Dorado County, California Bridges: Southern Pacific Viaduct across Weber Creek (1)

February 2013 (38.7084 Degrees, -120.8136 Degrees) Southern Pacific Viaduct

The next bridge over Weber Creek is southeast of the Forni Road Bridge. It's an old railroad viaduct that was once part of a branch line that extended from Sacramento to Placerville. The line was abandoned and eventually turned into the El Dorado Trail, a 28 mile long bike, foot, and horse path between Shingle Springs in the west to Camino in the east.

It's interesting how little Weber Creek eventually created such a huge valley that needed to be crossed by such a tall viaduct. A railroad bridge needs to be longer and therefore taller than a highway bridge to avoid steep grades, which explain why this viaduct is even taller than the State Route 50 Bridges that we've been studying over the past few days.

We'll take a closer look at the viaduct and trail tomorrow.

El Dorado County, California Bridges: Southern Pacific Viaduct across Weber Creek (1) by Mark Yashinsky is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.