page_title: San Mateo station
section_title: Bridges
hierarchical_section_title: San Mateo station / Bridges
caption_attribution_description: Low clearance (8'6") bridge for the railroad at Tilton. San Mateo.
context_page_description: San Mateo is the northernmost of the three Caltrain stations in San Mateo, California. It is in downtown San Mateo.
context_section_description: Just north of the station are four steel rail bridges crossing (from south to north) Tilton, Monte Diablo, E. Santa Inez, and E. Poplar avenues, the earliest grade separations on the Southern Pacific Coast Line (between San Francisco and Gilroy) and among the earliest grade separations in the entire state. The four rail bridges were built by the American Bridge Company for Southern Pacific in 1903, and sacrificial steel beams were added in 2006 to prevent damage from vehicle strikes. The bridges had low vertical clearances as they predate the prevalence of automobile transport:
  Tilton: 8 ft 6 in (2.59 m)
  Monte Diablo: 11 ft 1 in (3.38 m)
  Santa Inez: 12 ft 3 in (3.73 m)
  Poplar: 13 ft (4.0 m)
  Because the original rail bridges did not meet modern seismic safety standards, Caltrain and the City of San Mateo replaced the bridges during a project completed in October 2016. Planning for the bridge replacement started over a decade earlier. Although increasing the vertical clearance below the tracks was studied and was meant to be accomplished by raising tracks up to 4 ft 6 in (1.37 m) over their current elevation, an exemption was granted in 2014 to allow the low clearances at Monte Diablo and Tilton to continue, as raising the clearances at those bridges would also raise the track profile through the San Mateo station, requiring the platforms to be rebuilt. Lowering the roadways was not possible due to interference with subsurface utilities. The underpass at Tilton remains at 8 ft 6 in (2.59 m) of vertical clearance, more than 3 feet (0.91 m) less than the famous 11 foot 8 Bridge in North Carolina.
caption: Replacement (2016) bridge over Tilton, 8'6" clearance
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