Elbe bridge Dömitz (railway)

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Elbe bridge Dömitz
Dömitz railway bridge ReiKi pan.jpg
Technical specifications
length 985.6 m
Max. Span 67.8 m
system Truss bridge

The Elbe Bridge Dömitz was a 986 meter long railway bridge over the Elbe and was one of the longest river bridges in Germany. The partially destroyed structure is located near Dömitz and was part of the railway line from Wittenberge to Lüneburg .

history

Swing bridge and arches over the river bed

The railway overpass was built as a two-track bridge between 1870 and 1873. On the western bank of the Elbe, it consisted of 16 foreshore bridges with spans of 33.9 m each. The river bed was spanned with four bridge fields with spans of 67.8 m each and a swing bridge with 2 × 18.2 m. The eastern foreland spanned another four bridges with spans of 33.9 m each.

The superstructures were girder bridges with wrought iron lattice girders and an underlying roadway. The longitudinal girders were designed as Schwedler girders , the construction height of which, at a maximum of 10 m, approximately followed the course of the moment load. The Berlin engineer Ernst Häseler planned the structure, the bridge construction company Harkort'sche Fabrik from Johann Caspar Harkort from Duisburg built it. Due to its proximity to the Dömitz Fortress , the Berlin-Hamburger Eisenbahn- Gesellschaft was issued the following construction requirements in order to be able to defend the bridge against an enemy crossing the Elbe : The Elbe bridge at Dömitz may not be more than 2000 paces away from the Dömitz Citadel and must be a swing bridge , similar to the bridge to Hämerten included. In addition, two river piers are to be provided with demolition mines and the entrances to the bridge on both sides are to be secured by means of drum-like closures with guard-block houses . (...) The society cannot be initiated for war damage and demolition, it may come from the enemy, or in the interests of national defense, neither by the Territorial states can still claim a replacement from the North German Confederation . For this reason, too, there was a fortified bridge house at each end of the bridge, as it is today on the left bank of the Elbe. Both bridge houses should improve the defense of the bridge in the event of war. The immediate proximity to the Dömitz fortress , which was still a military object and location of a Mecklenburg regiment at the time the bridge was built, should also contribute to this.

Condition of use: Two-track expansion, one track with a plank track

Since the main line did not acquire any supra-regional importance, the single-track operation was sufficient for the volume of traffic. As a result, only one track was used on the double-track railway bridge.

After an air raid on April 20, 1945, the eastern superstructure in front of the swing bridge collapsed into the Elbe. Because the building crossed the inner-German border , it was not rebuilt. In 1978 the remaining three river bridges and their piers were demolished due to the risk of collapse, followed in 1988 by the eastern section with the swing bridge and the associated approach bridges. Today the 16 western foreland bridges with the associated bridgehead still exist; they are under monument protection.

In 2009 the bridge was offered for sale by the owner, Deutsche Bahn , at the highest bidder. The auction of the bridge, including more than 70,000 m² of land, took place in Berlin on April 10, 2010, the auction house set the minimum bid at 19,800 euros. A Dutch real estate company was awarded the contract for the sum of 305,000 euros. The western bridgehead was restored from 2017 to 2018. The renovation of the bridge piers and the installation of a pedestrian walkway are planned.

Current pictures

  • Ruins of the railway bridge on the left bank of the Elbe (Lower Saxony) downstream

  • The wrought iron gate from 1873 still blocks the access to the bridge today.

  • In the flood plain
    , the arches of the bridge had a span of 33.90 m.

  • On the left bank of the Elbe, the arches of the bridge in the floodplain are
    still preserved.

  • Side view of a bridge pier in the flood
    area

  • Abutment of the first bridge arch on the bridge house on the left bank of the Elbe

  • Side view of the bridge house; right in the picture the embankment, left the bridge

See also

literature

Web links

Commons : Elbbrücke Dömitz  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Law collection for the royal Prussian states, 1870, booklet 30. No. 7685 .: Concession and confirmation document, regarding the construction and operation of a branch railway from Wittenberge via Dömitz and Lüneburg to the connection to the Osnabrück - Bremen - Hamburger Eisenbahn, by the Berlin - Hamburger Eisenbahngesellschaft and an addendum to the statute of the latter. 16 June 1870.
  2. ↑ Tourism information on the railway bridge ( Memento from December 31, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) doemitz.de
  3. ↑ Eisenbahn-Magazin 10/2009, p. 20
  4. ↑ Dömitzer Elbbrücke auctioned for 305,000 euros Spiegel Online April 10, 2010
  5. ↑ Winfried Dolderer: Crowned by battlements . Repaired: the head building of the Dömnitz bridge. In: German Foundation for Monument Protection (Hrsg.): Monuments . Magazine for monument culture in Germany. No. 3 . Monuments publications, 2019, ISSN  0941-7125 , p. 34, 35 .
upstream Bridges over the Elbe downstream
Elbe bridge Wittenberge (street) Elbe bridge Dömitz (railway)
 Elbe bridge Dömitz (street)

Coordinates: 53 ° 7 ′ 49 ″  N , 11 ° 14 ′ 40 ″  E