Kaiserbrücke (Mainz)
Coordinates: 50 ° 1 '26 " N , 8 ° 15' 23" E
| Kaiserbrücke / north bridge | ||
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 below: North bridge (Amöneburg side) |
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| Official name | North bridge | |
| use | Railway bridge | |
| Crossing of | Rhine , Petersaue | |
| place | Mainz - Wiesbaden | |
| Entertained by | DB Netz AG | |
| construction | Truss bridge | |
| overall length | 789.49 m | |
| width | 9.2 m | |
| Longest span | 119.652 m | |
| Construction height | 11 m | |
| Clear height | approx. 9 m | |
| start of building | 1901 | |
| completion | 1904 (Kaiserbrücke) 1955 (Nordbrücke) |
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| closure | 1945 (destruction of the Kaiserbrücke) | |
| location | ||
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| Above sea level | 79 m above sea level NN | |
The Kaiserbrücke , whose official name is now Nordbrücke , is a double-track railway bridge and connects the Mainz Neustadt across the Rhine with the Wiesbaden districts of Mainz-Amöneburg and Mainz-Kastel . The river has formed the state border between Rhineland-Palatinate and Hesse since 1945/1946 , before both banks belonged to the People's State of Hesse or the Grand Duchy of Hesse and the city of Mainz .
location
The bridge is located north of Mainz Neustadt at Rhine kilometer 500.900 between the Mainz Nord train station on the left bank of the Rhine and the Wiesbaden Ost train station on the right bank of the Rhine . It is located on the DB route 3525 at km 2.140 and belongs to the Mainz bypass line .
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Kaiserbrücke (1904–1945)
The building owner of the Kaiserbrücke, built from 1901 to 1904, was the Prussian-Hessian Railway Community . As part of the bypass line, it was primarily intended to divert freight traffic between Mombach and Bischofsheim and thereby relieve the Mainz main station and especially the Mainz railway tunnel, which is considered a traffic bottleneck. At the time of construction, however, strategic military aspects also played a major role in the construction of railway lines and bridges. In this regard, the Kaiserbrücke was on the one hand an important link for the rapid transport of troops and supplies by rail to the border areas of the German Empire and France ( Alsace-Lorraine ), on the other hand it was - at least in the first years of its existence - through one Plank covering between the rails can also be used for the direct “passage of troops with all kinds of wagons” across the Rhine. Passenger traffic on the direct connection established by the bridge between Mainz and Wiesbaden main stations only became important later.
The bridge spans between the southwestern abutment on the landfall of the Ingelheimer Aue and the northeastern one on the Amöneburg bank over the two arms of the Rhine and the Petersaue in between . Between the two massive abutment structures, in each of which two vaulted underpasses are integrated, the bridge originally consisted of three structurally different sections: On three truss arches over the left arm of the Rhine, six yokes with parallel-belt truss girders followed over the Petersaue (the construction of which lay completely below the roadway) and two more half-timbered arches over the right arm of the Rhine. The total of five trussed arches appear to be of the same length on most of the traditional illustrations, the line of sight of which runs at an acute angle to the longitudinal axis of the bridge, due to the shortened perspective. In fact, their spans varied - starting from the Mainz side - between 93.80 m in the first arch, 107.20 m in the second and third arch and 116.80 m in the fourth and fifth arch. It was rather unusual that in the first curve the track had a gradient of 1: 320 towards the second curve, while it was flat in the other curves. The bridge girders over the Petersaue had an even span of 39.20 m each, the route had a barely perceptible gradient of 1: 800 in this section. The basic structural conception of the bridge was created in the offices of the Mainz Railway Directorate , the concrete implementation plans were drawn up by the steel construction company MAN Werk Gustavsburg , which shared production and assembly with the Dortmund Union - a total of 6,800 tons of steel were used in the superstructures. The solid structures, i.e. abutments, intermediate piers and bridge towers, were made by the Frankfurt construction company Philipp Holzmann & Cie. which apparently also performed the function of a general contractor . From 1903 to 1904, Benito Mussolini , who later became the Italian "Duce", is said to have worked as a guest worker on the building.
As was common around 1900, the structurally necessary components of the bridge were upgraded through representative architecture with sculptural architectural decoration. However, the bridge towers - especially the massive, towering main tower at the Mainz abutment - were not completely usable or functionless, in addition to unspecified facilities to cordon off the bridge for military reasons and associated guard rooms, etc., they also contained at least one signal box for the Switches and signals of the connecting curves to the existing railway lines are accommodated. The neo-Romanesque architecture of the bridge was designed by the Berlin architect Franz Schwechten , who had received special recognition from Kaiser Wilhelm II for some of his buildings in the past .
The relief decoration of the bridge architecture, which has largely been preserved, comes from the sculptor Gotthold Riegelmann (1864–1935) (images in the section on art in architecture ). What has been lost, however, are the two large busts on the narrow sides of the main tower, which showed Kaiser Wilhelm II and Grand Duke Ernst Ludwig and were executed in copper drifting based on models by the sculptor Walter Schott . It is possible that they were removed shortly after the end of the monarchy in Germany (1918). In addition, the two top officials responsible for the bridge project, the Hessian finance minister Fedor Gnauth and the Prussian minister of public works Hermann von Budde, are said to have been honored within the framework of the building decorations in a way that is not described in detail.
On May 1, 1904, the Kaiserbrücke was inaugurated with military protocol by Kaiser Wilhelm II and Grand Duke Ernst Ludwig in the presence of Reich Chancellor Bernhard von Bülow . Shortly afterwards it was named Kaiserbrücke .
The Mombach pilot Julius Buckler , who later became a " flying ace" during the First World War, flew under the bridge, which had a headroom (for navigation on the Rhine) of just over 9 meters at normal water levels.
The Kaiserbrücke was blown up towards the end of the Second World War on March 17, 1945 by the retreating Wehrmacht to stop advancing US Army units , which instead managed to cross the Rhine at Nierstein .
North Bridge (since 1955)
The north bridge was built on the pillars and abutments of the destroyed Kaiserbrücke from 1954–1955 based on a 1951 design by the Mainz Federal Railway Directorate . The remains of the bridge towers were removed and the old superstructures replaced with simple half-timbered construction. The north bridge consists of a double-track continuous girder over the two arms of the Rhine , which is designed as a postless strut framework with a carriageway below. The spans in the south-western part (opening no.3) are 94.545 m, (no.4) 108.708 m and (no.5) 110.040 m with a system height of 10.00 m. The northwestern part has (opening no. 12) 119.652 m and (no. 13) 117.540 m span and 11 m system height. Above the Petersaue there is a continuous girder with six openings and 40 m span each, it has 3.4 m high sheet metal girders and a roadway above. Only 5,500 tons of steel were needed, also because the steel was now of higher quality.
On the Mainz abutment there is a memorial plaque for the engineer Gottwalt Schaper with the following inscription: Gottwalt Schaper, 1873–1942, the successful bridge builder of the Deutsche Reichsbahn and commemorating pioneer of welding technology in steel bridge construction, in May 1955
In addition to rail traffic, the bridge can also be used by pedestrians; access is via stairs.
Part of the bridge over the left arm of the Rhine
Part of the bridge over the Petersaue, view towards Mainz
Regional train to Wiesbaden on the north bridge (December 2007)
Art in architecture (1904)
Mainz abutment, south side (upstream):
Two Teutons in front of a Roman fort
Emperor Marc Aurel with insignia
A German eagle harasses a Roman eagle. (Symbol of the end of Roman times )
Mainz abutment, north side (downstream):
Tympanum with Rhine daughters
Siegfried with a horned helmet
Dragon Fafnir from the Nibelungen saga
Siegfried the Dragon Slayer
Others
Immediately downstream of the Kaiserbrücke, the Flörsheim – Bingen traction power line crosses the Rhine - the southernmost Rhine crossing of a traction power line in Germany.
literature
- Fritz Eiselen: The new railway connection over the Rhine near Mainz. In: Deutsche Bauzeitung , 38th year 1904, in three parts:
- No. 35 (of April 30, 1904), pp. 213 f.,
- No. 37 (of May 7, 1904), pp. 225-231,
- No. 38 (11 May 1904), pp. 233-235.
- Karl Möhringer: The Bridges of the Rhine. Messkirch 1931, p. 24 f.
- Johannes Kurz (Ed.): Rails, Wheels and Signals. An image. (= Picture Yearbook of the Deutsche Bundesbahn 1954 , ZDB -ID 975221-3 ) Athenäum-Verlag, Bonn 1954.
- Federal Railway Directorate Mainz: The Kaiserbrücke near Mainz. Festschrift for the inauguration of the rebuilt Kaiserbrücke with its access routes in May 1955. Röhrig, Darmstadt 1955.
- Peter Scheffler: The railway in the Mainz - Wiesbaden area. Eisenbahn-Kurier Verlag, Freiburg (Breisgau) 1988, ISBN 3-88255-620-X , pp. 193-199.
- Marcel Prade: Les grands ponts du monde. Volume 1: Ponts remarquables d'Europe. (= Art & Patrimoine , Volume 7.) Brissaud, Poitiers 1990, ISBN 2-902170-65-3 , p. 69.
- Hans-Wolfgang Scharf: Railway Rhine bridges in Germany. EK-Verlag, Freiburg (Breisgau) 2003, ISBN 3-88255-689-7 , pp. 144–151.
- Bernd-Michael Neese: The Kaiser is coming! Wilhelm I and Wilhelm II in Wiesbaden. Reiss, Wiesbaden 2010, ISBN 978-3-928085-55-7 , pp. 66-69.
Web links
- Kaiserbrücke Mainz (1904). In: Structurae
- North Bridge Mainz (1955). In: Structurae
- History of Mainz-Kostheim (with reference to Kaiserbrücke) ( page no longer available )
- The inauguration of the Kaiserbrücke was celebrated in Mainz ( memento of September 27, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) in the Wiesbadener Tagblatt of September 7, 2006
- Initiative for a barrier-free Kaiserbrücke
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b Scharf: Railway Rhine bridges in Germany. 2003, p. 150.
- ↑ Deutsche Bauzeitung 1904, p. 230 (see literature)
- ↑ Brief: rails, wheels and signals. 1954, p. 64.
- ^ Eisenbahndirektion Mainz (Ed.): Official Journal of the Royal Prussian and Grand Ducal Hessian Railway Directorate in Mainz of April 23, 1904, No. 21. Announcement No. 198, p. 305.
- ↑ Michael Kläger: Mainz on the way to the big city (1866-1914). In: Franz Dumont , Ferdinand Scherf , Friedrich Schütz (Eds.): Mainz. The history of the city. von Zabern, Mainz 1998, ISBN 3-8053-2000-0 , pp. 429-474, here p. 467.
- ↑ Thanks to the President of the Mainz Railway Directorate, Karl von Rabenau , to the staff and thanks from the Prussian Minister of Public Works, Hermann von Budde, "for the uplifting course of the festivities on the occasion of the inauguration of the new Rhine bridge near Mainz". In: Eisenbahndirektion Mainz (Ed.): Official Gazette of the Royal Prussian and Grand Ducal Hessian Railway Directorate in Mainz from May 7, 1904, No. 24, p. 337.
- ↑ Eisenbahndirektion Mainz (Ed.): Official Journal of the Royal Prussian and Grand Ducal Hessian Railway Directorate in Mainz of July 23, 1904, No. 38. Announcement No. 394, p. 473.
- ↑ Brief: rails, wheels and signals. 1954, p. 64.
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The next bridge upstream: Alexander-M.-Patch-Brücke (destroyed) Theodor-Heuss-Brücke (Mainz – Wiesbaden) |
Bridges over the Rhine |
The next bridge downstream: Schiersteiner Bridge |