Hammer railway bridge

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Coordinates: 51 ° 12 ′ 30 ″  N , 6 ° 43 ′ 51 ″  E

Hammer railway bridge
Hammer railway bridge
use Railway bridge
Crossing of Rhine
place Düsseldorf - harbor / Hamm - Neuss - Hammfeld
construction Tied arch bridge with
truss reinforcement girders
overall length 813.5 m
width 26.5 m
Longest span 250 m
Construction height 47.5 m
opening 1987
location
Hammer Railway Bridge (North Rhine-Westphalia)
Hammer railway bridge

The Hammer Railway Bridge is an 814 meter long steel arch bridge that spans the Rhine between Düsseldorf and Neuss and is reserved for rail traffic . Previously used buildings at the same location had existed since 1870.

location

The bridge crosses the Rhine at kilometer 738. On the right bank of the Rhine, the Düsseldorf district of Hamm extends south of the bridge and the Düsseldorf harbor to the north . On the left bank of the Rhine, south of the bridge, is the Rheinpark-Center in the Hammfeld district of Neuss , the Neuss port area to the west and the Ölganginsel to the north . The next Rhine bridge upstream is the Josef-Kardinal-Frings-Brücke, only about one kilometer away . About five kilometers downstream is the Rheinkniebrücke , which is actually only about 2.7 kilometers as the crow flies northeast of the Hammer railway bridge. Both of the neighboring Rhine bridges are road bridges that can also be used by pedestrians and cyclists.

history

The two Düsseldorf railway bridges near Hamm, on the left the new one in its completion, on the right the old one, built in 1868–70, under renovation. September 1912
Hammer bridge and ruins of their predecessor
Ruins of the old security towers (east side)

The Hammer Railway Bridge has been expanded several times or built from scratch. The construction of the original double-track bridge of the Bergisch-Märkische Eisenbahn-Gesellschaft began in April 1868. After a little more than two years of construction, it was inaugurated on July 24, 1870 as the first permanent bridge over the Rhine in Düsseldorf. It was named after the Prussian King Wilhelm I. König-Wilhelm-Brücke (or König-Wilhelm-Eisenbahn-Rheinbrücke ). Your half-parabola support from wrought iron with three-piece stand-timbered were to plans by the engineer through the Pichier bridge construction company Harkort built in Duisburg. The bridge towers on both sides not only met a need for architectural decoration, but also the desire for military protection of the bridge in the event of a war. A “Sperrfort” built on the side of the bridge for the same purpose was removed again in 1885. Between July and September 1896, the approach bridges were renovated and the tracks on the overhead superstructures were renewed, with a single-track operation being carried out during the entire construction period with high traffic volumes and great logistical effort.

The train traffic, which has continued to grow rapidly since 1896, made it necessary to strengthen and supplement the bridge. Between 1909 and 1911 a second, parallel, also double-track bridge was built just 32 meters upstream. With the same pillar spacing, it had more modern and stronger superstructures in iron truss arch construction. As with the older bridge, there were bridge towers, but they looked larger and more robust. Immediately after the new bridge was put into operation, the modernization of the old one began, whose semi-parabolic girders were replaced by new superstructures that were identical to those of the second bridge. After completion in November 1912, two almost identical bridges stood next to each other, only the bridge towers differed significantly.

During the Second World War , the US Army succeeded on March 1, 1945 in conquering the neighboring town of Neuss . In order to at least make it more difficult for the advancing troops to cross the Rhine, the German Wehrmacht blew up all of Düsseldorf's Rhine bridges, including the Hammer railway bridges, on March 3, 1945. A provisional repair of the less damaged northern bridge began as early as the end of 1945, during which the destroyed two central arches were replaced by a makeshift bridge made of standardized parts of the "Schaper-Krupp-Reichsbahn" type. Despite many difficulties, the bridge was put into operation on July 31, 1946. For the final reconstruction, the least damaged arches of the structurally identical southern bridge were repaired and inserted into the northern bridge in place of the makeshift structure; This exchange could be made in November 1947, speed or weight restrictions were a thing of the past. The ruins of the southern bridge were not rebuilt, the iron parts were scrapped, the piers and bridge towers initially remained in a ruinous condition.

The construction of the east-west S-Bahn S 8 made it necessary to rebuild the Hammer railway bridge in 1984 with an extension to four tracks. The costs for this amounted to the equivalent of 61.4 million euros. The opening for shipping was also considerably expanded. The new bridge was built in the location of the second, southern bridge. The main span of the two-span river bridge is a 250-meter-long tied arch bridge with a truss stiffening girder, in the edge area the truss construction has a span of 135 meters. In this form, the building should be a reminder of the historical construction. The bridge is constructed in such a way that there are two tracks within the framework structure and one track on both sides outside the framework. The 9,000 ton construction is completely welded. The bridge was assembled from its individual parts weighing up to 100 tons at an assembly area on the Düsseldorf side and completed using the push-in method. The new bridge was opened in 1987 and until the opening of the Grümpentalbrücke in 2011 was the widest-span railway bridge in Germany with a span of 270 meters. The old northern bridge was then torn down, leaving the bridge towers as a relic of the first bridge from 1870.

use

The Hammer Eisenbahnbrücke is the only railway bridge leading over the Rhine in the part of the Rhine-Ruhr metropolitan region that extends in an east-west direction from the Bergisch city triangle over the Mettmann district , Düsseldorf and the Neuss district to Mönchengladbach , because the closest railway bridges over the Rhine are the 50 km upstream in Cologne preferred Hohenzollernbrücke and 36 km downstream in Duisburg preferred Duisburg high fields railway bridge .

During rush hour , up to 32 local public transport trains per hour use the four-track bridge, which has been used again since 1987, over which the Regional Express lines RE 4 , RE 6 , RE 7 , RE 10 and RE 13 , the regional train line RB 39 and the S-Bahn lines S 8 , S 11 and S 28 lead.

The still existing towers of the original bridge on the right bank of the Rhine from 1870 are used today by the Bergische Lehnsritter eV association. V.

Web links

Commons : Hammer Eisenbahnbrücke  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

literature

  • Bernd Franco Hoffmann: The Bergisch-Märkische Eisenbahn. Through the valleys of Wupper, Ruhr and Volme . Sutton-Verlag, Erfurt 2015, ISBN 978-3954005802 .
  • Karl Endmann (ed.): The hammer railway bridge. A testimony to the construction of a large bridge . Hestra-Verlag, Darmstadt 1989, ISBN 978-3777102207 .

Individual evidence

  1. a b Platt: The reconstruction of the Rhine bridge on the Düsseldorf - Neuss line. In: Centralblatt der Bauverwaltung , Volume 18, 1898, No. 30 (from July 23, 1898), p. 351ff.
  2. ^ Rheinbahn: Timetable 2017/2018 Düsseldorf / Meerbusch