Marienbrücke (Dresden)

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The Marienbrücke seen from the southeast

As Marie bridge in to Dresden two immediately adjacent bridges over the same between Wilsdruffer suburban and the inside Neustadt designated. The 434 m long stone arch bridge at Elbe kilometer  56.5 has existed since 1852 and was initially a combined road and rail bridge after the old Augustus Bridge from the 1730s, the second fixed Elbe crossing in Dresden . The Marienbrücke is the oldest Elbe bridge in the city.

In 1901 a separate, parallel bridge structure with four tracks was put into operation downstream (north) for rail traffic. The old bridge from 1852 is only used for tram and road traffic ( Bundesstraße 6 ). Between 2001 and 2004 the steel arches of the railway overpass were replaced by a new prestressed concrete bridge 490 m long for five tracks.

The Marienbrücke is named after Maria Anna von Bayern , the wife of the Saxon King Friedrich August II. And, like the neighboring Augustusbrücke, is a technical monument and a cultural monument of Dresden .

Road bridge from 1852

The Marienbrücke from 1852 in a contemporary engraving

Since 1839 the newly built Leipzig – Dresden railway line with the Leipzig train station had its Dresden terminus on the Neustädter Elbe side. A few years later, work began on two more railway lines ending in Dresden, the Dresden – Görlitz railway line opened in 1847 and the Dresden – Bodenbach railway line opened in 1848, initially from Dresden to Pirna . While the former ended with the Silesian Railway Station on the Neustadt side of the Elbe, the route to Bodenbach with the Bohemian Railway Station found its end on the Old Town side of the Elbe and the desired connection of the railway lines required a crossing of the Elbe.

At that time, the Augustus Bridge was the only connection between the old and new towns. During the flooding of the Elbe in 1845 , a pillar of the bridge collapsed on March 31, making the bridge impassable. This event made clear the need for a second Elbe bridge in Dresden. The city of Dresden agreed with the Saxon-Bohemian State Railway to jointly build a bridge over the Elbe for combined rail and road traffic.

The construction of today's road bridge according to plans by Theodor Kunz and Johann Gottlieb Lohse began with the groundbreaking on August 26, 1846 and lasted until the handover on April 19, 1852. After the laying of the foundation stone on December 3, 1846, during 1847 and 1848 the twelve pillars of the main bridge were founded and walled up. The work on the vaults took place the following year between April 12th and October 31st and in 1850 the end faces of the bridge were completed. In the same year the ramp with viaducts was established on the old town side of the Elbe and in 1851 the ramp on the Neustadt side of the Elbe was finally started. When it was handed over in 1852, the structure took up an 8 m wide double-track railway line and a 6 m wide road.

The desired alignment with the Augustus Bridge provided essential construction features, such as the design as a stone arch bridge and defined altitude as well as the division of the culverts in the Elbe river area. The 434 m long river bridge has 14 openings. In the middle there are twelve arches with a basket line shape and a clear width of 28.32 m each, at each end there is a semicircular opening with a clear width of 14.16 m. The first inner pillars and a central pillar are 6.80 m thick, the remaining ten pillars are 4.53 m thick. The river bridge piers were founded on post gratings , which consist of wooden posts studded with iron sheets.

The ramp on the Neustadt side measures 198.2 meters and bridges parts of the palace garden . The actual ramp is only visible towards the Palaisgarten and is called, like the street that runs along it, Kleine Marienbrücke . On the old town side, the location in the glacial valley of the Elbe and the course of the Weißeritz at that time required a 769 meter long foreland bridge including two culverts for Friedrichstrasse and Stiftstrasse.

View of the road bridge, 2010

Since 1901, the structure has accommodated road traffic on an 11 m wide carriageway and a double-track tram service without its own route and has 3 m wide sidewalks on both sides. During the laying of larger gas and water pipes in the 1920s, slots 40 to 50 cm deep were made in the back of the vault and the seal was partially removed. Moisture in the vault was the result.

In the last days of the Second World War, a pillar on the Neustadt side of the Elbe was blown up and the subsequent bridge openings collapsed. In 1946/47, the destroyed vaults were restored in their original geometry, but made of reinforced concrete. Pirna sandstone was only used for the front walls and the pier heads . Since the necessary renewal of the waterproofing did not take place, the structural condition of the bridge deteriorated. A load test carried out in 1990 confirmed the need for a comprehensive reconstruction.

The bridge in December 1998

Between 1994 and 1996, high-pressure cement injections were carried out at the foundation and the pile heads were pounded to protect against leaching and undermining . In addition to the repair work, a widening of the bridge was part of the reconstruction work carried out from 1997 to 2002. The upstream side remained unchanged, as monument preservers value their view as part of the historic old town center. That is why the widening from 17 to 20.5 meters on one side to the downstream side was carried out with a single-web T- beam .

Railway bridge

The railway bridge is part of the inner-city connecting line between the main train station and Dresden-Neustadt train station . The Dresden-Neustadt – Děčín railway line and the Pirna – Coswig railway line, which was built parallel to it for S-Bahn traffic, run on it .

Building from 1901

The foreland arch (right) over the Elbe Cycle Path still mainly consists of elements from the structure from 1901

The first pure railway bridge was built as part of the fundamental redesign of the Dresden railway junction in the 1890s. This envisaged an expansion from two to four tracks as well as an elevation of the inner-city connecting railway over the Marienbrücke. A first draft from 1894 envisaged widening the existing bridge, however, soil investigations on the foundations of the pillars showed that they would not have been able to cope with the associated higher loads. A new building was therefore absolutely necessary and the Saxon state and the city of Dresden signed a contract on July 13, 1894 for traffic across the Elbe at Marienbrücke. This stipulated that the city would buy the existing Marienbrücke bridge from the railway company and rebuild it for its own purposes and that the railway company would build a new bridge exclusively for rail traffic.

The new railway bridge was built between 1898 and 1901 according to plans by Hans Manfred Krüger, other sources mention Claus Köpcke , 40 m downstream by the steel construction company Aug. Klönne . Commissioning took place on March 1, 1901. The structure was designed for two freight train tracks and two passenger tracks and consisted of a foreland bridge and the river bridge. The foreland bridge on the western bank is an approximately 203 m long vaulted bridge with six openings and clear widths between 22.0 m and 38.12 m. In appearance and in its decorative elements it resembled the old Marienbrücke. The river bridge was a 258.85 m long steel truss arch bridge with five truss main girders and an overhead carriageway. The bridge had five openings with a maximum span of 65.75 m in the three central fields, which corresponded to a doubling of the pillar spacing compared to the old road bridge. The western end span was 37.6 m (39.84 m) wide, the eastern 24.0 m. From the beginning, the bridge had gas heating to thaw the snow masses.

Including the approach bridges, the bridge had 5692 m³ of masonry. The weight of the steel structure was 4754 tons.

The Marienbrücke Railway was spared from the air raids on Dresden in World War II, but the Wehrmacht blew up an arch of the approach bridge shortly before the end of the war. It was not until 1956 that the bridge, which had initially been temporarily repaired, was completely repaired and rail traffic could again be carried out on all four tracks.

Since the state of construction was classified as questionable after a hundred years and an extension of the Elbe crossing from four to five tracks was deemed necessary, Deutsche Bahn decided to rebuild the bridge. In parallel with the construction of a new bridge, the structure was gradually demolished from 2001. Until the first two tracks of the new bridge were put into operation, traffic was still carried over two tracks of the old structure.

During the Elbe floods in 2002 , the superstructure still in use at the level of the bridge piers was weighed down with class 130 diesel locomotives . This should counteract the water pressure caused by flooding. The structure was not damaged during the flood, but was not passable until August 21, 2002.

Construction from 2004

The 2004 railway bridge combines old and new elements
The railway bridge during the flood on May 7, 2013

Between 2001 and 2004 the hundred-year-old steel bridge was replaced by a haunched prestressed concrete box girder bridge . It was in the foothills area on falsework and in the electricity sector in cantilever built. The hollow boxes have a construction height of 2.50 m in the field and 5.81 m above the pillars. The structure consists of two separate superstructures. The spans of the two river bridges are 36.96 m in the western end span and 67.70 m, 65.80 m and 64.86 m in the power fields. The eastern end span consists of a prestressed reinforced concrete slab with a span of 24 m. The spans are practically unchanged compared to the previous bridge. The maximum permissible speed has been increased from 40 to 80 km / h.

Due to the changed design of the replacement building, special attention was paid to the design. For example, the lower part of the lateral webs was made of smooth concrete formwork and the part above in vertical, rough formwork. This takes up the arch design of the approach bridge. Sandstone elements were also reused for parapets and pulpits.

The construction work began with the laying of the foundation stone on November 15, 2001 and was completed on schedule. The shell of the first bridge superstructure was completed on September 18, 2002 and went into operation on January 27, 2003 with two tracks. The second old double-track bridge section was then torn down and replaced by the second, three-track bridge superstructure of the new building. The shell of the second part was completed on October 14, 2003. This section of the bridge, which is located downstream, went into operation on April 19, 2004 with two additional tracks. With the completed new building, the capacity compared to the old bridge increased from 300 to 550 trains per day.

The five-track expansion of the Marienbrücke was part of the second construction stage of the German Unity Transport Project No. 9. The Dresden S-Bahn uses two tracks of five tracks as planned; the other three are used for long-distance, regional and freight traffic.

Around 2000 t of steel and 45,000 t of concrete were used for the structure. The renovation of the entire section between the driveways of Dresden-Neustadt and Dresden Hauptbahnhof, including the Marienbrücke, cost around 100 million euros. Financing was provided by the federal, state, rail and EU authorities. A source from 2003 speaks of costs of around 75 million euros.

A six-track bridge was planned in the early planning phase. Based on the planned operating program, the track was reduced to five.

During the Elbe floods in 2013 , the upstream superstructure with the two tracks of the S-Bahn was blocked and the superstructure at the level of the bridge piers was weighted down with five class 132 diesel locomotives on the upstream track.

Traffic significance

As part of the western outer ring (tram and street of the 26er Ring ) and as part of the railway connection between the long-distance train stations Dresden Hauptbahnhof and Dresden-Neustadt , both Marienbrücken can be described as arteries of the urban infrastructure. The Marienbrücke is next to the bridge in Niederwartha one of the two Dresden railway bridges over the Elbe. Almost all long-distance trains that pass through Dresden run through them, as do many regional trains and two S-Bahn lines.

The federal road 6 and two tram lines (lines 6 and 11) lead over the road bridge . Its importance for motor vehicle traffic results from the ring route of the 26th Ring, the volume of traffic is similar to that of the Carolabrücke . The Marienbrücke takes on additional detour traffic within the tram network when the Augustusbrücke is closed. The road access to the bridge in the direction of the old town and the subsequent curve have only been permanently accessible with one lane since August 1, 2015.

Traffic load

  • 2009: 33,500 vehicles / 24h
  • 2015: 31,150 vehicles / 24h
  • 2016: 31,400 vehicles / 24h

literature

  • Reinhard Koettnitz, Frank Schwenke: Reconstruction and repair of the Marienbrücke in Dresden . In: TU Dresden (ed.): 8th Dresden Bridge Construction Symposium - proceedings, Dresden 1998, pp. 139–156 ( PDF document , 1.1 MB)
  • Thomas Bösche, Andreas Brunner, Mathias Weigelt and Wolfgang Uhlstein: The Railway Marienbrücke Dresden . In: 13th Dresden Bridge Construction Symposium - proceedings, March 2003, pp. 61–78 ( PDF document , 2.3 MB)
  • Heinz Opitz: The Marienbrücke. A new traffic route for Dresden and its changes up to the present. In: Dresdner Geschichtsverein e. V. (Ed.): Dresden Elbbrücken in eight centuries , Dresdner Hefte No. 94, Dresden 2008, pp. 44–50

Web links

Commons : Marienbrücke (Dresden)  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e message Marienbrücke now four-track in operation. In: Railway technical review . 53, No. 6, 2004, p. 399.
  2. ↑ a b c Heinz Opitz: The Marienbrücke. A new traffic route for Dresden and its changes up to the present. In: Dresdner Hefte No. 94, Dresden 2008, pp. 44–50.
  3. ↑ a b c d e Norbert Kempke: In 220 minutes from Leipzig to Dresden , Chapter 1846, the construction of the Marienbrücke began , p. 58 ff. Ed .: Association of Journalists of the Dresden District on the occasion of the solidarity campaign in 1989, Dresden 1989.
  4. ↑ a b c d Norbert Kempke: From Leipzig to Dresden in 220 minutes. Chapter From 1901 the railway ran on its own bridge. P. 61 ff. Ed .: Association of Journalists of the Dresden District on the occasion of the solidarity campaign in 1989, Dresden 1989.
  5. ^ A b Thomas Bösche, Andreas Brunner, Mathias Weigelt and Wolfgang Uhlstein: The Railway Marienbrücke Dresden. In: 13th Dresden Bridge Construction Symposium - proceedings. March 2003, pp. 61-78
  6. ↑ Kurt Qays, Matthias stallion: Dresden railway. 1894-1994. Alba, Düsseldorf 1994, p. 43 f.
  7. ↑ Floods in Europe. In: Eisenbahn-Revue International . Issue 10/2002, ISSN  1421-2811 , pp. 460-463.
  8. ^ Thomas Bösche, Andreas Brunner, Mathias Weigelt and Wolfgang Uhlstein: The Railway Marienbrücke Dresden. P. 73 ff.
  9. ^ Thomas Bösche, Andreas Brunner, Mathias Weigelt and Wolfgang Uhlstein: The Railway Marienbrücke Dresden. In: 13th Dresden Bridge Construction Symposium - proceedings. March 2003, pp. 61-78
  10. ↑ a b Report on the renovation of the Marienbrücke. In: Eisenbahn-Revue International . Issue 3/2003, ISSN  1421-2811 , p. 101.
  11. ↑ a b Report on Marienbrücke completed. In: Eisenbahn-Revue International . Issue 12/2003, ISSN  1421-2811 , p. 529.
  12. ↑ Ralf Rothe, Seckin Kurkut: German Unity Transport Projects upgraded line Leipzig - Dresden and train Dresden - Coswig . In: Railway technical review . No. 7/8 , 2008, ISSN  0013-2845 , p. 456-461 .
  13. ↑ DB defies the floods . In: DB World . No. 7 , 2013, p. 5 .
  14. ↑ Marienbrücke is now single lane . In: Saxon newspaper . July 31, 2015, ZDB -ID 2448502-0 , p. 15 ( online ).
  15. ↑ 2009 census, 2020 forecast and 2025 forecast ( Memento from May 4, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) (PDF; 12 kB)
  16. ↑ a b Flügelwegbrücke is in front , Dresdner Latest News from February 25/26, 2017 ( online for a fee )

Coordinates: 51 ° 3 ′ 39 ″  N , 13 ° 43 ′ 55 ″  E

upstream Bridges over the Elbe downstream
Augustus Bridge Marienbrücke (Dresden)
 Wing way bridge