Tidewater Southern Railway

Burning of the Tuolumne River Bridge

Around 2:30 PM on June 9, 2001 the first radio calls were heard concerning a vegetation fire along the Tuolumne River just south of downtown Modesto.  Ted Benson was in his office at the Modesto Bee when a report came over the scanner: "The fire has gone into the railroad trestle on 7th. Street and there's a large amount of smoke." 

As Mr. Benson saw it...

"A large amount of smoke was the understatement of the year. A pall of black was boiling into the air seemingly a block from the newspaper office.  And I knew at first glance that the cloud's location was all wrong for the former Southern Pacific trestle adjoining 7th Street.

"I'd like to say I was surprised, but considering the fate of the TS trestle in recent years, the fire was no shock. The railroad stopped using the span in March 2000 when local power began tying up at Rogers station in south Modesto. The last freight train over the bridge had run in November 1999. With the trains finally off 9th Street, the trestle had become an attractive nuisance and a structure destined for removal with the development of a regional park along the river's floodplain. I had fully expected to see the bridge torn down over the summer. Now, a fire of suspicious origin was hastening the plans for removal."

"The first fire call came at 2:31PM--I was on the scene by 2:40.  Parking a block from the entrance to the floodplain, I worked my way through a good-sized crowd of sightseers. My first images of the blaze were made about 2:45PM. It didn't take a rocket scientist to figure out the fate of the bridge."

all photos on this page are by Ted Benson and are used by permission.  Copyright 2001 Modesto Bee

click the image to see an enlarged version.

"Close to 300 feet of the 1.636 foot structure were already engulfed in flames. Mumbling a few words about sick bastards getting a rush out of history being destroyed, I climbed back up to street level at the north end of the trestle to shoot an angle I had covered many times when trains were using the bridge. I figured I'd never get this view again."

"As luck had it, I'd walked right into the command post for the Modesto Fire Department. After listening to the firefighters plan their attack on the blaze, I got a few shots of Jerardo Avila laying hose over the bank before scrambling back down into the floodplain for the remainder of my stay at the scene."

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