Nijmegen railway bridge

Spoorbrug Nijmegen
Convicted	Arnhem – Nijmegen railway line , ; cycle and pedestrian path
Subjugated	Waal
place	Nijmegen
Entertained by	ProRail
construction	Truss bridge
overall length	675 m
Longest span	235 m
Headroom	23.11 m (for ships)
start of building	1875 (old bridge)
opening	June 12, 1879 (old bridge), ; 1983 (new construction)
	location

51.852494 5.85685Coordinates: 51 ° 51 ′ 9 ″ N , 5 ° 51 ′ 25 ″ E

The Nijmegen Railway Bridge ( Dutch Spoorbrug Nijmegen ) spans the Waal , the southern arm of the Rhine in the Rhine-Maas Delta , in the Dutch city of Nijmegen . The Arnhem – Nijmegen railway line and a bicycle and pedestrian path attached to the railway bridge in 2004 run on the half-timbered construction , which was renewed in 1983, between the city center and the Lent district to the north . The bridge is located at kilometer 26.85 of the Dutch waterway 101 (Rhine-Waal- Boven-Merwede -Beneden -Merwede - Noord ) (Rhine kilometer 884.50).

history

The Nijmegen railway bridge, around 1879

The bridge towers at the southern abutment, 1880

The Snelbinder attached to the bridge in 2004

The railing posts of the Snelbinder form the lettering Waal , here reversed

After the most important railway connections in the Netherlands were completed in the mid-1870s, the route network was supplemented by some so-called Staatslijnen (German state lines ). One of the most important of these subsequent connections was the Arnhem – Nijmegen railway line. The route was only 17 kilometers long. The construction of two bridges over the Nederrijn near Arnhem and the Waal near Nijmegen made the project very complex. The construction of the railway bridge in Nijmegen began in 1875, and the construction was opened on June 12, 1879. Three days later the first train drove over the three-arched bridge. The span of the bridge from south to north was 3x129.4 m + 5x55.8 m. According to a design by the architect Pierre Cuypers , two bridge towers in the style of a medieval fortress were built on the southern abutment . From then on, they were perceived as an additional city gate. With the opening of the railway line, Nijmegen was one of the last large Dutch cities to have access to the railway network. At the same time, the railway bridge was the first permanent bridge in Nijmegen. The city was only to receive a road bridge with the Waal Bridge built in 1936 .

During the Second World War , the bridge played an important strategic role several times. After the Wehrmacht attacked the Netherlands , the main arch was blown up by the Dutch military on May 10, 1940. The bridge was then repaired by the German occupiers so that it could be used again on November 17 of the same year. FlaK positions were set up on the bridge towers . During Operation Market Garden in September 1944, the building was captured by the Allies, initially almost undamaged. On September 28, German combat swimmers managed to blow up the central main arch. After the end of the war, the damage was repaired again, whereby the top floors of the bridge towers, which had already been damaged by the Germans, were removed. From August 1, 1945, trains were able to cross the bridge again.

Since the two pillars lying in the river bed were an obstacle to navigation, the bridge was replaced by a new construction in 1983. First, new reinforced concrete foreshore bridges were built, then the main span with a length of 235 meters, at that time the largest span of a railway bridge in the Netherlands. There was now only one pillar left in the river bed. This was followed by the replacement of the remaining girders and final adjustments.

Between 2002 and 2004, a crossing was paved directly at the railway bridge for the Snelbinder bicycle and pedestrian path , which is around two kilometers long and connects Nijmegen with the Lent district. The approach bridge consists of single-span concrete beams suspended in consoles . The main bridge is a single pipe bend, which was assembled on a platform in the Waal. Due to the low water level, the fortification of the arch planned in September 2003 had to be postponed. On March 20, 2004, the structure was suspended from the railway bridge using four floating cranes . Ship and rail traffic had to be interrupted for a day. The building was criticized several times because of some difficult to reach stairs. In addition, the sight of the bridge towers, which are now under monument protection, was disturbed by the attachment of the cycle path. In 2008 the towers were renovated for € 1,144,514 by the city of Nijmegen, ProRail, the Dutch Ministry of Transport and money from the European Regional Development Fund. The parts of the building that were destroyed in the Second World War were reconstructed according to the original plans.