SEQUIM — Railroad Bridge reopened this afternoon, Feb. 20, after volunteers repaired a fence that had blocked access to the west side trestle before it was vandalized last week.
“We got it fixed today,” said Powell Jones, director of the Dungeness River Audubon Center at Railroad Bridge Park, 2151 W. Hendrickson Road.
“People can park in the parking lot and walk onto the bridge,” he added.
The historic bridge and trestle were closed Feb. 6 after the rain-swollen Dungeness River tore away pilings and a truss section of the trestle on the west side of the bridge.
The 150-foot bridge, which is undamaged, was reopened late Wednesday as a sort of viewing platform after Peninsula Trails Coalition volunteers put up a gate blocking access from the bridge to the damaged trestle.
On Thursday morning — less than 12 hours later — the bridge was closed again because the gate had been vandalized overnight, Jones said.
The gate’s chicken wire was peeled away and the vandals climbed onto the trestle and kicked the gate open from the inside, Powell said.
They also threw a “Danger” sign into the river, he said.
Repaired gate
After the vandalism, Peninsula Trails Coalition volunteers went to work again and by 3:30 p.m. today, Feb. 20, they had repaired the gate.
It now blocks access to the damaged trestle, and the bridge has been opened again to public access, Powell said.
“It’s important to . . . keep the bridge accessible,” so that people can view the damage and the change in the Dungeness River, Powell said.
“We want to allow people to see the logjam, the shift in the river and see the damage from a safe distance.”
The main channel of the river has shifted to the west because of rainfall from winter storms beginning in December, according to Hansi Hals, environmental planning manager with the
Jamestown S’Klallam tribe, which owns the park.
The gate is on the east side of the damaged portion of the trestle, which is about 530 feet long, Powell said.
Second gate
A second gate — this one on the west side of the damaged portion of the trestle — is expected to be erected in the next few days, he said.
Both gates have been made by the Peninsula Trails Coalition volunteers. Each gate takes about 40 hours of work, Powell said.
Each gate has cost about $250 in materials.
Materials for repair of the present gate cost $30 to $40, Powell said.
Until the closure, Railroad Bridge was a well-traveled passage of the Olympic Discovery Trail, a hiking-cycling-equestrian path that runs through parts of Jefferson and Clallam counties.
Now the trail will be blocked at the bridge for months for trestle repair.
Jamestown chief operations officer Annette Nesse has said the tribe is seeking federal and state funding to redesign and rebuild the trestle.
The tribe has contacted U.S. Sen. Patty Murray, U.S. Rep. Derek Kilmer of the 6th Congressional District and state Rep. Steve Tharinger of the 24th Legislative District.
Nesse said last week it was too early to estimate costs.
Powell said that repair will be complicated by the lack of access to the damage.
“It’s not an easy situation because it’s in a salmon stream,” Powell said.
Also, he said, the damage is roughly 400 feet from the westside paved trail
“This is the longest span over the Dungeness River,” he said.
“The damage happens to be in the middle of it, so it’s not easily accessible from either side.”
Grading for the historic bridge started in January 1914.
The Peninsula Trails Coalition maintains the Olympic Discovery Trail, which begins in Port Townsend, has legs from Sequim to Port Angeles and points west, with the vision of eventually extending it all the way to LaPush on the Pacific Ocean.
EARLIER STORY
By Diane Urbani de la Paz
Peninsula Daily News
SEQUIM — Less than 12 hours after the main stretch of Railroad Bridge reopened, vandals wrought damage that sparked its closure Thursday morning.
The bridge across the Dungeness River had just been made accessible to the public Wednesday afternoon, but only as a viewing deck from which to see the damaged trestle on its western side.
The bridge and trestle in Railroad Bridge Park, 2151 W. Hendrickson Road, have been closed since Feb. 6, when a rain-swollen river tore away the trestle’s pilings.
A popular stretch of the Olympic Discovery Trail linking Sequim and Port Angeles, Railroad Bridge is expected to stay closed to through-traffic for months.
Peninsula Trails Coalition volunteers had spent Wednesday at the park finishing construction of a gate to block the collapsed trestle.
So the main span, whose sturdier pilings are driven deep into concrete below, opened up for afternoon visitors.
“We had quite a few people up on the bridge as we were packing up our tools,” said Gordon Taylor, the Peninsula Trails Coalition special projects manager who built the gate.
Taylor and his crew also put up a sign warning “Danger” and “Do not go beyond this point.”
Vandalized gate
The vandals not only peeled away the gate’s chicken wire, climbed onto the trestle and kicked the gate open from the inside, he said, but also threw the sign into the Dungeness River.
The damage was discovered at about 7 a.m. Thursday, said Powell Jones, director of the adjacent Dungeness River Audubon Center.
After conferring with the Jamestown S’Klallam tribe, which owns the park, Jones closed the entire bridge until further notice.
“I need to keep it a safe environment,” he said, adding that the trestle is “flat-out dangerous.”
At the same time, he understands that people are curious and want to get up onto the span to see the trestle, the river and its wildlife.
What he doesn’t understand is why someone would tear apart the fruit of what he estimates was 40 hours of volunteer labor.
“One bad apple,” Jones said.
Try again
But both he and Taylor are ready to try again.
“We’re going to go up there, make some changes to [the gate], reinforce it and look at installing cameras,” Jones said.
Taylor said he’s not averse to rebuilding the barrier and even working on another gate on the western side of the trestle.
Jones, meanwhile, said if he can obtain a security camera and a sign informing people that they are being photographed by it, the main Railroad Bridge viewing deck could reopen this weekend.
As for rebuilding the trestle itself, Jamestown chief operations officer Annette Nesse said the tribe is seeking federal and state funding — having contacted U.S. Sen. Patty Murray, U.S. Rep. Derek Kilmer of the 6th Congressional District and state Rep. Steve Tharinger of the 24th Legislative District — to redesign and rebuild the trestle.
Nesse said it’s too early to estimate costs.
Meanwhile, “we keep plugging away,” Taylor said of the Peninsula Trails Coalition.
The 28-year-old group of volunteers maintains the Olympic Discovery Trail, the hiking-cycling-equestrian path running through Jefferson and Clallam counties.
It begins in Port Townsend, has legs from Sequim to Port Angeles and points west, with the vision of eventually extending it all the way to LaPush on the Pacific Ocean.
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Features Editor Diane Urbani de la Paz can be reached at 360-452-2345, ext. 5062, or at diane.urbani@peninsuladailynews.com.
