Garabit Viaduct
Coordinates: 44 ° 58 ′ 31 ″ N , 3 ° 10 ′ 39 ″ E
| Garabit Viaduct | ||
|---|---|---|
 |
||
| Official name | Viaduc de Garabit | |
| use | Railway bridge | |
| Convicted | Béziers – Neussargues railway line | |
| Subjugated | Truyère | |
| place | Ruynes | |
| overall length | 564.69 m | |
| Longest span | 165 m | |
| height | 122 m | |
| completion | 1884 | |
| location | ||
|
||
The Garabit Viaduct ( French Viaduc de Garabit ) is a steel railway bridge that spans the river valley of the dammed Truyère in France . The viaduct was built by Gustave Eiffel towards the end of the 19th century. The structural design and the static calculation of the simply statically indeterminate two-hinged arch are from Maurice Koechlin and Émile Nouguier .
history
Construction work began in 1880. In April 1884 the arch was closed. The viaduct was the highest railway bridge in the world for 25 years and is one of the most important bridges of the 19th century. The Garabit Viaduct became a popular destination shortly after its completion. Many French people traveled to Saint-Flour at the weekend to marvel at this technological marvel.
chronology
- November – December 1878: Léon Boyer carries out surveys to determine the course of the railway line.
- March 25, 1879: The first plans are handed over to the administration by Léon Boyer.
- June 14, 1879: The Department approves the project.
- January 1880: start of work.
- August 16, 1880: Gustave Eiffel presents the final project.
- June 1884: End of the advance of the bridge trough.
- May 9, 1887: Parts of the Marvejols - Saint-Chély-d'Apcher line opened.
- April 10, 1888: First load test of the viaduct with a 400-ton train.
- May 27, 1888: The Saint-Chély-d'Apcher - Saint-Flour section opens.
- November 10, 1888: Complete opening of the railway line.
- 1932: Electrification (1500 volts) of the Béziers line from Neussargues by the Compagnie du Midi .
- 1992: The viaduct is repainted from 1992 to 1998 in “red Gauguin”.
- September 11, 2009: The discovery of a crack leads to the temporary closure of the viaduct.
- October 11, 2009: Reopening with a maximum speed of the trains on the entire viaduct of 10 km / h.
- June 14, 2011: Closure of the section between Neussargues and Saint-Chély-d'Apcher for five months for major construction work on the viaduct.
Reason for construction
The bridge was part of the then important and fast rail link from Paris via Clermont-Ferrand and Millau to Béziers . The railway ran from Clermont-Ferrand through the foothills of the French Massif Central . The area around the town of Saint-Flour ( Cantal department in Auvergne ) is characterized by deep gorges . An elaborate bridge construction was necessary to overcome the Truyère Gorge.
In the 19th century, the inhabitants of the area lived mainly from agriculture , especially cattle breeding . It was difficult to sell the local produce. The animals had to be driven dangerously to the trading centers through the impassable terrain. The name Garabit for the area comes from the trek of the cattle, which was vital for the survival of the people of that time. It is a modification of the dialect pronounced word “Garde Boeuf”. With the construction of the railway line, their situation improved because they were connected to the major markets. With the building, progress made its way into the inhospitable region.
construction of the bridge
.jpg)
Gustave Eiffel had already built half a dozen bridges at various locations in the Massif Central . His hitherto largest bridge structure was in Portugal of Maria Pia viaduct in Porto . The 29-year-old Leon Boyer, an engineer from Marvejols, has now designed the Garabit Viaduct based on the model.
The project was carried out by the bridge construction company Eiffel & Compagnie from Paris. The project aroused great interest both in specialist circles and among the general public. In June 1883, the assembly of the arch began, which was erected in the guyed cantilever . The trusses of the superstructures (bridge trough) were pushed in from both abutments.
After four years of construction, the bridge was completed in 1884. Up to 500 workers were active on the construction site; one of them fell fatally.
The creative use of iron brought the designer and entrepreneur Gustave Eiffel new fame. He was called the "iron wizard". The success in building his bridges contributed to the fact that he was awarded the contract to build the Eiffel Tower named after him for the World Exhibition in Paris .
Technical details
With a length of almost 565 meters, the structure spans the Truyère valley at a height of 122 meters between the bottom of the valley and the apex of the arch. The span of the arch is 165 meters. The arch itself is simply stored statically indefinitely . This distinguishes the two- hinged arch from the otherwise visually very similar Müngsten bridge , whose hinge-free arch is supported three times statically indeterminate with almost the same dimensions.
3,169 tons of high-quality wrought iron , 41 tons of steel and 23 tons of cast iron were used with 678,768 rivets. The weight of the individual components was a maximum of 145 kg, suitable for transport and construction site. The arched foundations and masonry viaduct sections comprise 20,409 cubic meters of masonry . The paint covers 51,000 m².
In 1909, 25 years after completion, the Garabit Viaduct was exceeded in height by the Viaduc des Fades near Clermont-Ferrand .
The maximum speed on the viaduct was initially 50 km / h, was reduced to 40 km / h and after the repair of damage is now 10 km / h.
Trivia
Trains organized by Louis Bonnet (editor of the newspaper L'Auvergnat de Paris ) for the country-addicted Parisians for trips to the Auvergne began running on June 21, 1904 . They were also of great importance to the Auvergnates who lived in Paris. The trains ran until 1939.
From 1915 to 1939, Mr. Valladier was the keeper of the viaduct. He climbed and inspected all parts of the viaduct regularly - without safety devices.
Today's meaning
_par_Cramos.JPG)
.jpg)
The residents of the surrounding villages are still very proud of their once so important building. Due to the high quality of the materials and the pioneering construction for the time, the bridge is - after repairs - in good condition. With its slim, elegant shape, the viaduct appears extremely filigree and, despite the solidity of the building material, blends in surprisingly harmoniously with the rugged rocky landscape.
Garabit developed into a destination for tourists early on and has remained so to this day. In the past, more than a dozen trains ran on the north-south route every day. The single-track, electrified SNCF -Ligne des Causses connects Clermont-Ferrand via Millau with Béziers .
The originally gray color was replaced at the end of the 1990s by a coat of paint in "red Gauguin", which underlines the elegance of the building. The viaduct is illuminated at night.
In 1992 the north-south motorway A 75 "La Meridienne" was completed. It runs approx. 600 m eastwards parallel to the viaduct. The rest area there offers a view of the Truyère valley and the entire viaduct. The motorway bridge south-east of the viaduct is 311 meters long and a modern, functional structure made of prestressed concrete , over which long-distance traffic runs parallel to the D 909 past Garabit.
2007: From the beginning of March, the line between Neussargues and Saint-Chély-d'Apcher was closed due to dilapidation and rail replacement traffic operated, so that a crossing was not possible. After completion of the repair work, traffic was resumed on July 18, 2007.
2014: There is only one pair of passenger trains running the route every day. (The SNCF buses running parallel to the railway line need only 28 minutes between Saint-Flour and Saint-Chély-d'Apcher, compared to 38 minutes by train.) Freight traffic to supply the steelworks in Saint-Chély takes place several times a week.
Film honors
The bridge received film honors in 1967 and 1976; in the world war drama One Man Too Many and later in the disaster thriller Treffpunkt Death Bridge , where it was seen as the Kassandrabrücke in danger of collapsing . However, the film took place in Poland.
As early as the summer of 1964, the French director Henri-Georges Clouzot made recordings here with Romy Schneider and Serge Reggiani for the film L'Enfer ('Hell'). However, filming was stopped when the director suffered a heart attack a few weeks later. Experimenting with exciting visual innovations, the film was never completed. It was not until 2009 that the film historian Serge Bromberg published parts of the 14-hour material he had rediscovered in his documentary The Hell by Henri-Georges Clouzot, which was presented at the Cannes Film Festival . Bromberg's documentary received the French César film award for best documentary film in 2010 .
More pictures
.jpg)
Web links
- Arte report on the Garabit Viaduct
- Garabit Viaduct. In: Structurae
- Garabit Viaduct on Highestbridges.com
- Excursion train for tourists
- Current timetable (PDF; 165 kB)
- Information on route closure (French)
Individual evidence
- ^ Karl-Eugen Kurrer : The History of the Theory of Structures. Searching for Equilibrium . Berlin: Ernst & Sohn 2018, pp. 75ff., ISBN 978-3-433-03229-9 .
- ^ Gerhard Mehlhorn, Masaaki Hoshino: Bridge building on the way from ancient times to modern bridge building . In: Handbuch Brücken, Gerhard Mehlhorn (Ed.) , P. 47, Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2007. ISBN 978-3-540-29659-1
- ↑ Information sheet of the Ecomusee de Margeride from 2008
- ↑ Information sheet of the Ecomusee de Margeride from 2008