Burgberg Tunnel (Erlangen)
| Burgberg tunnel | ||||
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 South portal of the old Burgberg tunnel, 2008
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| use | Railway tunnel | |||
| traffic connection | Nuremberg – Bamberg railway line | |||
| place | Burgberg , Erlangen | |||
| length | 306.65 m | |||
| Number of tubes | 1 | |||
| construction | ||||
| Client | Royal Bavarian State Railways | |||
| start of building | 1842 | |||
| completion | 1844 | |||
| business | ||||
| release | August 25, 1844 | |||
| location | ||||
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| Coordinates | ||||
| South portal | 49 ° 36 ′ 32 " N , 11 ° 0 ′ 1" E | |||
| North portal | 49 ° 36 ′ 41 " N , 11 ° 0 ′ 3" E | |||
Map with all coordinates: The Burgberg tunnel is a 306.65 meter long railway tunnel on the Nuremberg – Bamberg railway line in the area of the central Franconian city of Erlangen . The building, which was inaugurated on August 25, 1844 and is now a listed building, is the oldest railway tunnel in Bavaria .
location
The tunnel is located between the Erlangen train station and the Bubenreuth stop at line kilometer 24.9 on the Nuremberg – Bamberg railway line. It leads through the western part of the Burgberg , a ridge of the Rathsberg ridge .
planning
Since the western slope of the castle hill extends almost to the bank of the Regnitz , it has always been a traffic obstacle in the eastern river valley. The section of the Ludwig-Danube-Main Canal , built at this point between 1836 and 1843, could still be passed in a brick bed on the narrow valley floor between the Regnitz and the Nuremberg - Bamberg road . When the Nuremberg – Bamberg railway line was to be built as part of the Ludwig-Süd-Nord-Bahn from 1841 onwards , the Royal Railway Construction Commission responsible for planning in Nuremberg had to investigate several possibilities to pass the bottleneck on Burgberg.
The railway line, which was initially built on a single track, was originally intended to run between the retaining wall on the mountain slope and the canal, for which, however, the road would have to be relocated. The engineers also found that the track would run so close to the waterway that “for safety reasons, the canal's pulling path would have to be closed until the trains had passed.” “Trains would be able to pass at moderate speed, but the train should be out come along the track, he can fall into the canal. ”Also, the“ sight of the canal monument would be lost very much ”. Thereupon several considerations were made about alternative routes, for example behind the retaining wall and the canal monument or even east of the castle hill at the height of Rathsberger Straße. Since these plans were not convincing either, it was decided to build the Burgberg tunnel. The first rail tunnel in Bavaria was a prestige project that was intended to demonstrate the tunneling art of the Kingdom of Bavaria under Ludwig I.
Construction and description
After a few test bores , the government issued the building permit on July 1, 1842. Construction work began on September 25th of this year. As with the Ludwig-Danube-Main Canal, the uneven layers of rock and the rubble-like overburden from quarries caused great technical difficulties. Since the bricks in the surrounding brickworks were insufficient, two brick huts had to be built especially for the construction of the vault. On November 22, 1843, the two ends of the excavations finally met.
The construction costs totaled 310,786 guilders , making the tunnel the most expensive structure on the Nuremberg – Bamberg railway line. The inauguration took place with the opening of the Nuremberg – Bamberg railway on August 25, 1844, the “highest birth and name celebration of Sr. Majesty the King”. On September 1, 1844, the route was opened for freight traffic. Scheduled passenger traffic followed on October 1 of the same year.
In accordance with the lordly claims of King Ludwig I, it was decided to design the building in a monumental manner. The south portal is flanked by two Bavarian lions , the north portal by two sphinxes . The four statues of above-average artistic quality were created by the sculptor Johann von Halbig . The original plan even included a candelabra with a tripod , which was supposed to illuminate the tunnel on high national holidays .
Together with the Ludwig-Danube-Main Canal, which was later built over here by the federal motorway 73 , the canal monument and the three-arched railway bridge over the Schwabach , the most important monument complex of the 19th century in Middle Franconia was built on the western slope of the Burgberg. It should illustrate in an impressive way the victory of technology over nature in the modern industrial age. On the northern slope, with the Regnitz, Ludwigskanal, Fernstraße and the railway, you could enjoy the so-called "Vierstraßenblick", which was a popular motif for graphic representations and photographs.
Like all railway lines built in Bavaria at the time, the tunnel was initially only built with one track, with its width already designed for the construction of an additional track. Between 1862 and 1892 the line was expanded to two tracks in four stages. In 1936, the tunnel was expanded in profile in the course of electrification , and some drainage problems were also eliminated. In the same year, the existing level crossing on Bayreuther Strasse south of the Burgberg tunnel was replaced by a bridge due to the expansion of what was then Reichsstrasse 4 .
Extension by a second tunnel tube
A second tube was built east of the old tunnel as part of the Nuremberg – Ebensfeld upgraded line ( VDE 8.1 ). With a maximum covering of 38 meters, it is also 306 meters long in order to preserve the historic portal situation after construction is completed. The existing tunnel will also be renovated in the course of the construction work. In mid-October 2013, Deutsche Bahn announced the construction of the tunnel and an adjacent bridge across Europe. The construction contract to be awarded should run from May 2014 to the end of April 2016. On November 8, 2013, early measures worth 2.4 million euros were awarded.
Construction of the second tube was scheduled to begin at the end of 2014. On February 18, 2015, the second tunnel tube was hit. The breakthrough took place on July 2, 2015. Karin Kefer, the wife of DB board member Volker Kefer , acted as tunnel sponsor .
The second tube cost 16 million euros. It was put into operation on August 15, 2016. The old tube has since been closed for about a year. During this time, the tracks and some bridges around the tunnel were renewed. The condition of the structure of the tunnel itself turned out to be so good that renovation was not necessary. Both tunnel tubes have been in operation since August 28, 2017.
Picture gallery
South portal with level crossing, photograph around 1880
Bavarian lion on the south portal, 2013
North portal of the Burgberg tunnel, 2008
Sphinx at the north portal, 2011
Web links
- Pictures and information about the Burgberg tunnel by Lothar Brill
- Construction progress on the Burgberg tunnel . Construction progress diary of the German Unity Transport Project No. 8
- Location, course and permissible speeds on the OpenRailwayMap
Individual evidence
- Christoph Friederich, Bertold Freiherr von Haller, Andreas Jakob (Hrsg.): Erlanger Stadtlexikon . W. Tümmels Verlag, Nuremberg 2002, ISBN 3-921590-89-2 ( online ).
- ↑ Reinhard Jakob: Ludwig-Danube-Main Canal .
- ^ Martin Knauer: Burgberg Tunnel .
- ^ Andreas Jakob : View of the four streets .
- ^ Andreas Jakob : Bayreuther Strasse .
- Other sources
- ↑ List of monuments for Erlangen (PDF) at the Bavarian State Office for Monument Preservation
- ↑ Bruno von Freyberg: On the quarry history in and around Erlangen . In: Heimatverein Erlangen und Umgebung e. V. (Hrsg.): Erlanger building blocks for Franconian homeland research . No. 27 , 1980, ISSN 0421-3769 , pp. 16 .
- ↑ Bruno von Freyberg: Building ground and raw material problems when building the Burgberg tunnel in Erlangen . In: Heimatverein Erlangen und Umgebung e. V. (Hrsg.): Erlanger building blocks for Franconian homeland research . No. 20 , 1973, ISSN 0421-3769 , p. 3-32 .
- ↑ a b c Heinz Martius: The Erlanger Burgberg in the course of time . Palm & Enke, Erlangen 1988, ISBN 3-7896-0082-2 , pp. 63-65 .
- ↑ a b c Michael Jungwirth: The history of the first state railway Bavaria Nuremberg – Bamberg. The first section of the Ludwigs-Süd-Nord-Bahn ( memento of the original from August 26, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. . As of February 14, 2012.
- ^ Sylvia Ostertag-Henning: Bergkirchweih & Platenhäuschen . A tour of the Erlanger Burgberg. Sandberg Verlag, Nuremberg 2004, ISBN 3-930699-39-7 , p. 52-53 .
- ^ Frank von Meissner: Franconian Railway . 150 years Nuremberg – Bamberg. In: Eisenbahn-Journal . No. 11 , 1994, ISSN 0720-051X , p. 39-45 .
- ↑ Ernst Eichhorn: The Railway in Art - Railway and Industrial Culture (PDF file; 1.95 MB) . As of February 14, 2012.
- ↑ DB ProjektBau : upgraded Nuremberg – Ebensfeld line, Erlangen construction section (PDF file; 6.18 MB). April 7, 2012.
- ^ Germany-Leipzig: construction of railway tunnels . Document 2013 / S 200-346776 of October 15, 2013 in the supplement to the Electronic Official Journal of the European Union .
- ^ Germany-Nuremberg: Construction of road bridges . Document 2013 / S 222-387282 of November 15, 2013 in the supplement to the Electronic Official Journal of the European Union .
- ↑ Peter Millian: Bahn clears its way north in Erlangen . Online article from November 27, 2013 in Nürnberger Nachrichten .
- ↑ a b Starting signal for the new Burgberg tunnel . In: Nürnberger Nachrichten . February 19, 2015, p. 15 (similar version online ).
- ↑ a b ICE new line is making progress . In: Süddeutsche Zeitung . July 3, 2015, ISSN 0174-4917 , p. 46 ( online ).
- ↑ Today the first train drove through the new Burgberg tunnel online article from August 15, 2016 by Nürnberger Nachrichten .
