Santa Fe Arroyo Seco Railroad Bridge
# Santa Fe Arroyo Seco Railroad Bridge

The Santa Fe Arroyo Seco Railroad Bridge in Highland Park, Los Angeles, is more than 710 feet (220 m) long and crosses the Arroyo Seco Parkway at an elevation of over 56 feet (17 m). It is the tallest and longest railroad span in the city of Los Angeles, and most likely the oldest such structure still in use. The bridge crosses the lower part of the Arroyo Seco, a watershed canyon from the San Gabriel Mountains.

The Santa Fe Arroyo Seco bridge, built in 1896, replaced the 1889 wooden trestle used by the Southern California Railway, which was a subsidiary of the Santa Fe Railroad. The 1889 bridge, designed by Santa Fe's chief structural engineer Fred T. Perris, replaced the original 1885 wooden trestle bridge built by the Los Angeles and San Gabriel Valley Railroad. Rail service ended in 1994 and in the late 1990s, the bridge was retrofitted to accommodate the Los Angeles Metro's Gold Line (now the A Line since 2023) light rail system which opened on July 26, 2003.

Advocated by the Highland Park Heritage Trust and Charles J. Fisher, the bridge was declared City of Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monument No. 339 on January 22, 1988.

* Aerial view of the bridge.
* One of the bridge's trestles.
* 1885 view of the Los Angeles and San Gabriel Railroad crossing the Arroyo Seco near Garvanza - Highland Park
* Rail line map of the Los Angeles and San Gabriel Valley Railroad 1885
