Lake Fork Trestle Bridge

Uncompahgre National Forest

(location)

You can find out a little bit about the train that once moved gold and goods and passengers through this area at the Lizard Head Interpretive Site right at the top of the pass. Across from that is the trailhead for one of the segments of "single and double track" trail that follow the route of the tracks, now long gone. One thing that does remain is the trestle over Lake Fork. (A fork of the San Miguel River.) I walked over and had a look at it. Even on the trestle, the tracks are long gone.

0: from the side — The trestle from the side.

1: more wooden trestle — Another view of the trestle, from above the road crossing the river.

2: big water below and mountains beyond — The coming of Lake Fork on the other side of the road.

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Comments

Chris Valle-Riestra said…

That's real nice! There aren't a lot of those old trestles around. Back in the day, when engines burned coal or wood and spewed embers, the trestles tended to catch fire a lot, which of course would put the line out of service. Therefore, on the main lines, the railroads would replace them with fill or proper bridges when they could. A famous one in California on the transcontinental railroad was the Secret Town Trestle. They filled in right around the timbers until the fill reached the level of the tracks.

05 August, 2022 22:55