Editor's column: No, Auburn's historic train trestle isn't being demolished

The Union Pacific Auburn Ravine Bridge is featured on the website bridgehunter.com. The profile includes 16 photos, its history, design, dimensions, coordinates and more. What the profile doesn't include is that the bridge – also known as the I-80 Railroad Bridge, or in Auburn as simply the trestle – is held close to the hearts of residents. So when the Auburn Journal posted a news release on its website and other social media platforms last week alerting readers to a weekend bridge project, which included the word "demolition" in the headline, it caused quite a reaction. Some thought the bridge was coming down. Others replied that Union Pacific would only be doing repairs. "That train bridge is a piece of History and should be saved!!" George Zick posted under the story on the Journal's Facebook page. "Scheduled Repairs.. Not demolishing it," Ryan Ballardo offered in the same comment thread. And others posed the question, is it being demolished or repaired? The answer was: Repairs. No, Auburn, the trestle is not being demolished. But it did receive repairs, which required lane closures last weekend on Interstate 80 and detours that made traffic a bit of a mess, according to a friend who drove through town during the work. I've covered a handful of construction projects in my two years at the Journal, and our staff has written about several others. We've learned our readers take an interest in these projects and are quick to ask questions and express opinions. Before Super Bowl kickoff Sunday, the light went on inside my head (dim as it may be) that hey, we should do a follow-up story on the specifics of this latest project on the trestle. After all, it is 113 years old, and I figured, again, our readers would be interested in specifically what UP was doing to it. I didn't get far, though. All I got from Mike Jaixen, Senior Manager – Communications at Union Pacific, in response to my email of inquiry about the specifics of the job, was that UP was "doing some preventative maintenance work on the bridge's inspection walkways, including removing some old timber no longer needed." He added in a follow-up reply that UP didn't take any pictures of workers under or on top of the bridge. Sigh. So I struck out. Opportunity missed. But at least we know this: The beloved train trestle that crosses over I-80, known as the halfway point home for travelers from the Bay Area and embraced by the people of Auburn, is safe. Bill Poindexter is managing editor of the Auburn Journal.