Chärstelenbach Bridge
The Chärstelenbach Bridge is the longest railway bridge on the northern ramp of the Gotthard Railway . The bridge of the rather rare form of construction with a central pillar in the valley floor leads in the municipality of Silenen in the canton of Uri over the Chärstelenbach at the exit of the Maderanertal and is one of the outstanding, particularly often photographed engineering structures of the Gotthard Railway.
location
The 127 meter long bridge is located 10 kilometers south of Erstfeld at 47.9 kilometers on the railway line from Lucerne to Göschenen at 573 meters above sea level. M. It crosses the Bristentobel with the Chärstelenbach and in 1912 constructed route segment in the Maderanertal to 53 meters in height and is located between the next to the ruins Zwing-Uri subsequent Windgällen tunnel (length 182 m) and the southern Bristentunnel I (length 798 meters). Under the southern abutment, a footpath leads from Amsteg up into the Maderanertal.
Following the course of the Reuss valley , the railway line leads in a long curve over the bridge, which, as part of the north ramp to the Gotthard tunnel, has a gradient of 26 per thousand.
history
The Gotthard Railway Company built the Chärstelenbach Bridge from 1880 to 1882 as a single-lane bridge. It consists of two fields with a high brick central pillar. The northern abutment is designed as a fore bridge made of masonry with two arched openings, the southern one under the Bristen has only one arch. On the two bridge openings there were 6 meter high trusses, which were followed on both sides by walkways with railings for the route keepers on consoles. The Erstfeld – Göschenen line was opened on June 1, 1882.
When the Gotthard Railway was built in 1893, the Gotthard Railway Company had the abutments and the central pillar widened and the bridge equipped with a second pair of trusses. The valley-side girders were reinforced with lower chords in 1906 due to higher loads. During the electrification of the Gotthard line from 1920 to 1922 by the SBB, the second bridge was also reinforced due to the increasing weight of the trains, with which the truss bridges were expanded to form fish-belly girders .
The four lattice girders were replaced from 1970 to 1972 by single-track bridge elements with a span of 50 meters each. The fore bridges and the central pillar remained and now support the solid steel wall girders on which the reinforced concrete decks made of reinforced concrete lie.
literature
- Aldo Rota: steel, granite, concrete. In: 90 km of railway culture. Tec21 133, 2007, pp. 31-35.
Web links
Individual evidence
- ^ Structural engineering of the Chärstelenbach bridge: Otto Riese: The engineering structures of Switzerland from the field of road, rail and bridge construction of recent times. Berlin 1887, pp. 68-72.
- ↑ Widening of the central pillar: FB: The construction of the second track of the Gotthard Railway. ( Memento of the original from August 27, 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. In: Centralblatt der Bauverwaltung. Berlin, November 25, 1893, pp. 496–498.
Coordinates: 46 ° 46 ′ 10 " N , 8 ° 40 ′ 25" E ; CH1903: 694328 / 180550