Fire Destroys Quarter Mile Stretch of Train Trestle in Sacramento...Disrupts Rail Traffic/Cargo

[KoKo]

Fire destroys part of train trestle
Officials say incident will hamper passenger and freight traffic in the Sacramento area.
By Stuart Silverstein, Times Staff Writer
March 16, 2007

A quarter-mile stretch of a wooden train trestle on a heavily used rail line in Sacramento was destroyed by fire late Thursday afternoon, an incident that officials said would hamper passenger and freight traffic in the area for an undetermined period.

The fire was reported about 5:40 p.m. just northeast of downtown near the state fairgrounds, and it backed up rush-hour traffic as motorists watched thick smoke billow thousands of feet into the sky.

Within a few hours, two or three sections of the trestle had collapsed. "This whole bridge is total loss," said Capt. Jim Doucette of the Sacramento Fire Department.

Cliff Cole, an Amtrak spokesman, said passengers would be transferred to buses for an indefinite period to route them around the affected area. Amtrak, he said, runs two round-trip services — the Capitol Corridor and the California Zephyr — through the area every day. Late Thursday, Cole said, Amtrak stopped a westbound Zephyr train in Roseville and put its 130 passengers on a bus to continue their trip toward the Bay Area. Union Pacific also uses the line, but the company could not be reached for comment.

Fire officials said they had not determined how the blaze started. The trestle keeps trains elevated above a wetlands area in the American River Parkway

http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/california/la-me-trestle16mar16,1,6956394.story?coll=la-headlines-pe-california

[tandot]

1. Yes. I had to take my car to work this morning. The fire started minutes after my train

crossed that bridge on my way home.

I crossed that bridge twice a day, to and from work. I'll have to check how the busses work out. Usually, it is a big hassle to use the Amtrak busses.