Sonnborn railway bridge
Coordinates: 51 ° 14 ′ 30 ″ N , 7 ° 6 ′ 11 ″ E
| Sonnborn railway bridge | ||
|---|---|---|
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| use | railroad | |
| Convicted | Düsseldorf – Elberfeld line | |
| Subjugated | Wupper , B 228 , Wuppertal suspension railway | |
| place | Wuppertal - Sonnborn ( North Rhine-Westphalia ) | |
| Entertained by | Deutsche Bahn | |
| construction | Arch bridge | |
| overall length | ~ 120 m (2nd construction) | |
| Longest span | 66 m (2nd building) | |
| building-costs | 970,000 marks (2nd construction) | |
| start of building | 1839 (1st building) 1911 (2nd building) |
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| completion | 1840 (1st building) 1914 (2nd building) |
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| opening | 1840 (1st building) May 1914 (2nd building) |
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| planner |
DEE (1st building) KED Elberfeld (2nd building) |
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| location | ||
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| Above sea level | 144 m above sea level NHN | |
The Sonnborn Railway Bridge is a railway bridge in the Elberfeld district of Wuppertal and, as an often photographed object, is one of the city's most famous postcard motifs.
It is located on the Düsseldorf – Elberfeld railway line between the Sonnborn stop and the Wuppertal Zoologischer Garten station and, in addition to the Wupper, also spans the 228 federal road ( Friedrich-Ebert-Straße and Sonnborner Straße crossing ) and part of the Wupperbrücke Siegfriedstraße and the Wuppertal suspension railway .
The sloppy term " Porta Rhenana " used for the location does not refer to the bridge, but to the Vohwinkel valley to the west through which the railway line from Düsseldorf reaches the valley of the Wupper (similar to: " Porta Wupperana ", somewhat to the east ).
description
The current building was for the royal railway Direction Elberfeld built, the successor in the 1882 "Royal Direction of the Bergisch railway" the previously nationalized -Märkische Bergisch railway company took over. Coming from Düsseldorf, the main route crosses the valley of the Wupper near Sonnborn near the Sonnborn main church and continues south of the river in a straight line through the Wuppertal inner cities.
At the same time, the now disused Düsseldorf-Derendorf-Dortmund Süd railway on the Wuppertal northern route with numerous and complex railway viaducts and tunnels was built in competition in topographically much more difficult terrain in 1873 .
First construction
The first bridge at this point was a railway viaduct with six arches, each with a clear width of 14 meters. It was initially carried out as a single track in 1840 (according to another source 1839-1841), with three of the pillars being founded in the river bed.
The bridge was built by the Düsseldorf-Elberfelder Eisenbahn-Gesellschaft (DEE) as part of their main line between Düsseldorf and Elberfeld . The architect Eduard Wiebe designed the bridge, and as a construction manager one Ezekiel was responsible.
On the circular (according to another source: hexagonal) foundation pedestals stood cross-shaped pillars , over which the round arches spanned. Above it was a parapet with a profiled cornice , cranked around a signal guard's house . This small component showed classicistic details in the profiles and acroteries , which were repeated in the two-storey signal guard house on the left. It led over the Wupper at a crossing angle of 60 ° and had a width of 5.3 meters between the parapets.
Among the early bridges and viaducts, such as the railway viaduct at Opladen also over the Wupper, the Schildeschen Viadukt , and the Weser bridge between Bad Oeynhausen and Minden, the Sonnborn railway bridge had the most sophisticated artistic design. It was also one of the oldest and largest arched railway bridges in Germany.
Shortly after the line was completed, King Friedrich Wilhelm IV and his family crossed the bridge in the direction of Düsseldorf in August 1841 . However, the bridge was officially opened together with the railway line to Elberfeld on September 3, 1841.
The single-track bridge construction was expanded in 1864 by removing the gravel bed and installing an iron structure. This consisted of cross and longitudinal girders that provided space for a double-track line.
On March 16, 1890, a major railway accident occurred on the bridge when the twelfth wagon of a freight train in the direction of Elberfeld-Steinbeck derailed about 300 meters from the bridge and crashed into the Wupper with the 32 wagons that followed. Two auxiliary brakeman died in the accident and were recovered later from the in-flow of debris only two weeks. Two other auxiliary brakes survived seriously injured because they jumped to the other side of the bridge in front of the runaway train. Technical failure was identified as the cause of the accident. The bridge was widened shortly after the accident. When the Wupper was lowered 50 cm in the fall of 1959, the wheel and axle of a railroad car were found while the river bed was being dredged, but apparently they were not recovered after the accident.
From 1899 the supporting structure of the Wuppertal suspension railway ran tightly between two central pillars.
Second construction
The plans for the expansion of the railway line to four tracks caused the designers greater difficulties. Widening the bridge by placing a similar building with six arches next to it was ruled out from the start. A structure with three arches with an opening width of 15, 32 and 15 meters clear width was also rejected. No pillar was to be placed between the river and Provinzialstraße, today's federal highway 228 , which would take away the space from the street.
The Railway Directorate decided to build an arch bridge with a single arch around 66 meters long over the road and the river. An arch ten meters wide followed on the eastern bank. Instead of iron, stone was chosen as the material in order to keep maintenance costs low.
The shape of the arch was determined by the height of the suspension railway. This increased the upper edge of the rail by 1.25 meters, but the local conditions allowed this without any disadvantages. To avoid strong secondary stresses due to equipment and thermal fluctuations, the structure was designed as a three-hinged arch with two transom joints 50 meters apart and a crown joint 5.65 meters higher . All joints are made of steel. At the top of the vault, the thickness is 1.7 meters, the thickness at the abutments is 3.7 meters. The overlying wall is broken up by three-meter-wide savings vaults. The abutments are founded in the rock. They were exposed on the west side and eight meters deep in the terrain in the east.
The structure was erected from 1911 to July 1914 by first building the first half of the new bridge to the south of the old bridge. The construction companies involved were A.-G. in November 1911 for the air pressure foundation on the east side. Grün and Bilfinger and for the rest of the work from January 1912 the Max Ostwald company under the direction of the engineer Lothar Murcks.
The first phase of construction, the foundation, began in spring 1912. The scaffolding was erected in the summer, the arching in late autumn and the equipment at the end of December. The first commissioning then took place in the beginning of April 1913. Shortly afterwards, the two middle vaults of the old bridge were demolished by hand, the remaining vaults were blown up. The second construction phase began in the spring and summer of 1913 with the foundation. The work and falsework was moved in autumn and the arching took place in November. In December 1913 it was the turn of the northern side to be equipped. In May 1914, the second page was put into operation. The remaining work dragged on until July.
For the vault and abutment, the Railway Directorate chose Ruhrsandstein in cement mortar , with the visible surfaces being machined in a hammer-like manner . The cornices and parapets were made of stone created and the square located at the joints are made of granite .
The construction work was made considerably more difficult by the maintenance of the single-track railway and suspension railway. The building materials were carried to the work scaffolding on narrow-gauge tracks and distributed manually or electrically using four overhead cranes.
Simultaneously with the construction of the bridge, the Wupper was forced into a narrower river bed with higher retaining walls and the growing road traffic was taken into account with a wider road. At that time this bridge was one of the largest arched railway bridges in Germany. The construction costs amounted to around 970,000 marks . The design work was done at the Royal Railway Directorate Elberfeld .
expansion
The electrification of the railway line in Wuppertal was implemented in 1963. The masts required for this were attached to the side of the bridge.
In the 1970s the width of the bridge was increased a little by adding reinforced concrete supports on both sides. It is now about one meter above the top edge.
On June 16, 1981, the Wupperbrücke Siegfriedstrasse was opened to traffic , some of which was built below the Sonnborn railway bridge. The reinforced concrete bridge replaced the old zoo bridge , which had become too small for traffic.
Todays situation
Today the bridge is owned by Deutsche Bahn and is the only structure that crosses the suspension railway. As a postcard motif, it was usually depicted with all means of transport, railway, suspension railway, bus and tram and even with a zeppelin. Only the tram no longer runs here today. For the North Rhine-Westphalia Day 2008 they wanted to repeat this with all possible railways.
Individual evidence
- ↑ Porta Rhenana ( Memento of the original from January 2, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Accessed November 2008
- ^ A b c d e f g h i j k l Zentralblatt der Bauverwaltung 34. 1914, No. 101 = p. 689–696 p. 695 Reconstruction of the railway bridge over the Wupper in Elberfeld-Sonnborn
- ↑ District Zoo - Sonnborn - Vohwinkel ( Memento of the original from September 28, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. by Wolfgang Mondorf
- ↑ a b c d e Eberhard G. Neumann: Thoughts on Industrial Archeology: Lecture, Writings, Reviews Olms, Hildesheim / Zurich / New York 1986, ISBN 3-487-07735-3 , p. 138
- ↑ Vohwinkeler Zeittafel, accessed November 2008
- ↑ General Gazette of October 3, 1959
- ^ Bahn-Chronik (time tables) Accessed November 2008
- ↑ Wuppertal from 1160 to today - Read what happened in June! ( Page no longer available , search in web archives ) Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , (Accessed November 2008)
Web links
- Sonnborn railway bridge. In: Structurae
- Entry in the list of monuments. In: wuppertal.de. Retrieved April 9, 2018 .
- A hidden treasure in Wuppertal
- Sonnborn Bridge Old postcard motifs
- Sonnborner Brücke Pictures from an interesting perspective