Why Is There a Wooden Railroad Bridge in the California Desert That No Train Can Reach?

There is a wooden bridge in the California desert that is over six hundred feet long and stands about a hundred and eighty feet above the floor of the canyon it crosses. It is built of redwood. It curves, because a straight bridge would not have fitted the ground. No road reaches it. To stand underneath it you walk several miles into a state park through country with no water in it, and the last part of the approach is a dry waterfall you have to climb down and then climb back out of. It is still standing. There are still rails across the top of it. And it still has an owner, which is the part of this that turns out to matter more than anything else. IF YOU ARE GOING UP THERE As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. California Atlas and Gazetteer (DeLorme) - the approach to Carrizo Gorge is desert dirt road and there is no phone signal out there, so this is the one to have on the seat beside you: https://amzn.to/3Tod0UR WHERE IT IS Carrizo Gorge is in eastern San Diego County, California, on the edge of Anza-Borrego Desert State Park. The nearest road of any kind is Interstate 8. The Goat Canyon Trestle sits at roughly 32.729 north, 116.183 west. There is no road to it. The usual approach is a long walk in from the desert side, in country with no water, and people get into serious trouble out there every year. The railroad itself is private property. The Desert Line belongs to the San Diego Metropolitan Transit System, and the track, the tunnels and the trestle are not open to the public. Walking them is trespassing. If you want to ride the same railroad legally, the Pacific Southwest Railway Museum at Campo has been running trains over the western end of the line since the 1980s. Carrizo is pronounced kuh-REE-zoh. Tecate is teh-KAH-tay. A NOTE ON THE IMAGES The research and the script are mine, from primary records and archives, and the sources are listed below. Where no photograph of a place survives, and for this channel that is often, the images are period material from elsewhere rather than the place itself. SOURCES John A. Wilson, "Formidable Places: Building a Railroad in the Carriso Gorge", Journal of San Diego History, 1994 Robert M. Hanft, "San Diego and Arizona: The Impossible Railroad", 1984 Reena Deutsch, "San Diego and Arizona Railway: The Impossible Railroad", 2011 Pacific Southwest Railway Museum, history of the San Diego and Arizona San Diego Evening Tribune and San Diego Union, 1919 Interstate Commerce Commission abandonment decision, 1978 San Diego Metropolitan Transit System board records Trains Magazine, "San Diego agency seeks new partner for desert line", 2024 Trains Magazine, "San Diego officials seek cost of reopening former SD and AE route", 2025 Voice of San Diego, November 2021 San Diego Union-Tribune, 2018 and 2022 Anza-Borrego Desert State Park IF YOU WERE THERE If you have hiked into Goat Canyon, or ridden the museum trains out of Campo, or your family worked for the San Diego and Arizona or on any of the crews that tried to bring the desert line back in the 2000s, I want to hear it. And if anybody has ever seen the film of the 1919 blast, the one they showed in the San Diego cinemas, I would very much like to know a copy still exists. Comment or write to [email protected]. Old Alignment. Abandoned American roads, railroads and infrastructure. New video every other day. #carrizogorge #impossiblerailroad #abandonedrailroad