Himbächel Viaduct

Himbächel Viaduct
	Himbächel Viaduct with express train
Convicted	Odenwaldbahn
Crossing of	Himbachel valley
place	Oberzent - Hetzbach
construction	Stone arch bridge
overall length	250 m
Number of openings	10
Pillar spacing	24 m
Clear width	20 m
height	43 m
Clear height	40 m
building-costs	343,615 marks
start of building	1880
completion	1881
opening	1882
planner	Justus Kramer
	location

49.603333333333 8.9927777777778Coordinates: 49 ° 36 ′ 12 " N , 8 ° 59 ′ 34" E

The Himbächel Viaduct is a single-track viaduct of the Odenwaldbahn in the Erbach - Hetzbach im Odenwald section at kilometer 24.54 across the Himbachel valley . The viaduct can be clearly seen from the neighboring federal highway 45 and is illuminated at night.

history

The viaduct during its construction in 1881

The design for the bridge comes from Justus Kramer . It was built from May 1880 to November 1881 by the construction company Karl Weißhuhn from Opava in Silesia for the Hessian Ludwig Railway . The vaults were in the then usual style with elaborate falsework from wood produced. The total cost was 343,615 marks . The viaduct was put into operation in May 1882. Towards the end of the Second World War , the pioneers of the Wehrmacht prevented the demolition . Some villagers removed the explosive charges that had already been attached to the two central pillars when the soldiers, armed with bazookas, marched towards Erbach to stop the advancing American forces .

technology

The 250-meter-long arched bridge consists of ten arches, each with a clear width of 20 meters and a maximum height of 43 meters above the valley floor. The bridge is divided into three parts, the middle part with four arches and three high pillars and the two side parts with three arches each. The three parts are separated from each other by reinforced pillars six meters wide in the upper part. The remaining pillars are four meters thick at the top and have a 1:30 taper on all sides . That means they get wider at the bottom. The vaults are one meter thick at the apex and two meters thick at the fighter . The bridge was built from 16,400 cubic meters of local red sandstone , with the pillar cores made of rubble stones. The foundations were poured from concrete and have a foundation depth of four meters, with one pillar of eleven meters.

meaning

The bridge was an outstanding engineering achievement at the time and the most important railway bridge in Hesse . Today it is a cultural monument due to the Hessian Monument Protection Act . The Federal Chamber of Engineers and the Technical Chamber of Hesse have the Himbächel Viaduct on 10 September 2010 as Historic landmark of civil engineering in Germany excellent.

Similar viaducts

structurally similar, but smaller: the Haintal Viaduct on the same route between Hesseneck and Eberbach
structurally similar, but lower, longer and older: the Ruhr Viaduct (Herdecke) in Herdecke

literature

Odenwald interest group: 100 years of the Odenwald Railway 1882–1982.
State Office for Monument Preservation Hessen (Ed.), Heinz Schomann : Railway in Hessen. (= Monument topography Federal Republic of Germany , cultural monuments in Hessen , Volume 2.1.) Theiss Verlag, Stuttgart 2005, ISBN 3-8062-1917-6 , page 452.
Fritz Paetz: Data collection on the history of the railways on the Main, Rhine and Neckar . Bensheim-Auerbach 1985.
Karl Heinrich Schwinn, Susanne Klingebiel-Scherf: The Himbächel Viaduct of the Hessian Odenwald Railway . (= Historical Landmarks of Civil Engineering in Germany , Volume 6.) Federal Chamber of Engineers , Berlin 2012, ISBN 978-3-941867-10-9 .

Web links

Commons : Himbächel Viaduct - Collection of images, videos and audio files

State Office for Monument Preservation Hessen (Ed.): Himbächel Viaduct and Krähberg Tunnel In: DenkXweb, online edition of cultural monuments in Hessen

Individual evidence

↑ Schomann
↑ Paetz, p. 10
↑ Schomann
↑ Schomann
^ NN: Viaduct becomes "Historic Landmark of Civil Engineering in Germany" . In: State Office for the Preservation of Monuments Hesse (Ed.): Preservation of monuments and cultural history. 4/2010, p. 45
^ Federal Chamber of Engineers: The Himbächel Viaduct of the Hessian Odenwaldbahn, information about the structure

[1] Schomann

[2] Paetz, p. 10

[3] Schomann

[4] Schomann

[5] NN: Viaduct becomes "Historic Landmark of Civil Engineering in Germany" . In: State Office for the Preservation of Monuments Hesse (Ed.): Preservation of monuments and cultural history. 4/2010, p. 45

[6] Federal Chamber of Engineers: The Himbächel Viaduct of the Hessian Odenwaldbahn, information about the structure