(The following story appeared on The Fresno Bee website on November 19.)
FRESNO, Calif. — An early morning fire today destroyed a Madera County railroad trestle near Avenue 26 and Santa Fe Drive east of Chowchilla, disrupting service for Amtrak passengers and delaying freight deliveries.
The cause of the blaze has not been released.
Steve Weatherby, a general manager for Burlington Northern Santa Fe, said an engineer stopped his southbound train about 2:30 a.m. to call in the fire.
Nearly eight hours later, most of the 420-foot-long wooden trestle lay charred and broken on the west side of Berenda Slough.
“It’s completely gone,” he said. “We’ll dig it up, scrap it and build another one.”
Weatherby said railroad workers and firefighters were hoping to have a temporary trestle and track in place within 24 hours, but it would take about 10 days to build a permanent trestle.
About 60 trains, including Amtrak, use the Chowchilla track daily.
Weatherby said the break in the rail line had disrupted schedules for trains as far north as Klamath Falls, Ore., and as far south as Needles on the California-Arizona border.