Mexican Canyon Trestle, Railway bridge in Otero County, US

The Mexican Canyon Trestle is a curved wooden railway trestle built in 1899 on the Alamogordo and Sacramento Mountain Railway. It is 323 feet long and rises 52 feet above the canyon floor, with vertical supports spaced 15 feet apart made of 12-inch by 12-inch timbers. The top part was built in 21 sections to form the curve, and the structure is now the most prominent remaining piece of the railroad.

The bridge was built in the late 1800s as part of an ambitious railroad project to develop a remote mountain region. After decades of service, the rail line eventually closed, but the structure itself survived.

The name comes from Mexican Canyon, which the trestle crosses on the former Alamogordo and Sacramento Mountain Railway. The line ran under several company names between 1899 and 1947, hauling spruce and fir timber from the Sacramento Mountains. A plaque at the US 82 overlook calls the route "The Cloud Climbing Railroad".

The trestle stands about 0.5 miles (0.8 km) northwest of Cloudcroft, just off US 82. A roadside viewpoint with a plaque titled "The Cloud Climbing Railroad" faces the bridge. The rails were removed in 1948, so the deck is not walkable; the structure is seen from the overlook.

The trestle's top section was built in 21 curved segments of 8"x16" timbers, each resting on ten 15-foot main timbers set on footing blocks 4 to 8 feet underground. Metal guard rails ran outside the standard gauge rails so a derailed train would not fall off the bridge.