Neisse Viaduct (Görlitz)
Coordinates: 51 ° 8 ′ 34 ″ N , 14 ° 59 ′ 26 ″ E
| Neisse Viaduct | ||
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| Official name | Viaduct Neissetal | |
| use | Railway bridge | |
| Convicted |
Railway line Wrocław Świebodzki – Görlitz (km 202.455) , Railway line Węgliniec – Görlitz (km 251.715) |
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| Subjugated | Lusatian Neisse | |
| place | Görlitz / Zgorzelec | |
| Entertained by | PKP Polskie Line Kolejowe | |
| construction | Arch bridge made of stone | |
| overall length | 475 m | |
| width | 8.6 m | |
| Number of openings | 30th | |
| Pillar spacing | Max. 27.62 m | |
| Clear width | Max. 22.28 m | |
| Pillar strength | 6.28 m (third pillar from the west) | |
| height | 35 m | |
| building-costs | 640,668 thalers | |
| start of building | July 1844 | |
| completion | August 1847 | |
| opening | September 1, 1847 | |
| planner | Bogner (master carpenter), Fischer (master builder), Gustav Kießler (master bricklayer), Ludwig Benjamin Henz (construction director), Weishaupt (chief engineer) |
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The Neißeviadukt in Görlitz is a railway bridge over the Lusatian Neisse between Germany and Poland . The 475 meter long viaduct is one of the largest and oldest railway bridges in Germany. It was opened in 1847 with the railway line between Görlitz and Kohlfurt as part of the former railway connection between the Saxon capital Dresden and the Silesian provincial capital Breslau .
After about 100 years, the highest arches were blown up at the end of World War II and rebuilt in the 1950s under Polish leadership. The reconstructed arches are clearly different in color from the older part of the viaduct. Since May 1957, trains have been able to cross the Lusatian Neisse and thus the German-Polish border again at this point. In 2012, three pairs of cross-border passenger trains used the viaduct on the Dresden – Wroclaw route every day. The border crossing only plays a subordinate role in freight transport. Most freight trains use the more northerly Węgliniec – Roßlau railway with the border crossing Zentendorf / Bielawa Dolna .
location
The Neisse Viaduct is located at the northern end of the valley section of the Lausitz Neisse near Görlitz. The Neisse makes a wide bend at this point. On the concave west side, the granite rock wall rises steeply about 35 meters. On the convex east side, in turn, a gently rising (increase 1:10) half-cone forms the bank area.
The trains coming from Zgorzelec station ( formerly: Görlitz-Moys ) lead along a long right curve towards the viaduct. Once on the Görlitz side, the railway line leads through an incision in the log cabin and an increase of 1: 133 to the eastern Görlitz station apron .
On the German side, the Obermühle building complex is north of the viaduct and the Friedenshöhe municipal park with a viewpoint on the viaduct and Neißetal to the south . Below the viaduct, the Oder-Neisse cycle path leads along the river through the valley via Inselweg .
On the Polish side there is the urban park Ujazdowy ( German: Moyser Park, formerly: Jägerwäldchen ), which is the continuation of the Zgorzelec city park north of the railway line around the Dom Kultury ( formerly: Upper Lusatian Hall of Fame ).
history
planning
The construction of the railway line through the pine forests of the Görlitzer Heide was based on a compromise which provided for the connection of Görlitz to the main line of the Lower Silesian-Märkische Eisenbahngesellschaft (NME) . The main route of the NME ran from Berlin via Frankfurt (Oder) and Liegnitz to Breslau, thus bypassing Upper Lusatia, which has been Prussian since 1815. The plans provided for the branch line to Görlitz to begin again from a branch line of the NME in Kohlfurt. In Görlitz a connection to the Saxon-Silesian railway should be realized. To do this, however, the Neisse had to be crossed. The option of the crossing consisted of an elongated flood bridge on the flatter plains north of the city or a bridge over the narrower but deeper Neisse valley. The decision was made to cross the deep Neisse valley, as the town had to be touched, a level transition to the Saxon-Silesian railway had to be realized and the route should not exceed a maximum gradient of 1: 200.
Because the eastern valley section of the Neisse is lower than the western one, the search was now for a place where the eastern bank was as high as possible and the valley cross-section was again as small as possible. The decision was made in favor of the valley section at the Obermühle, where all the client's requirements could be met via valley cuts on the west side of today's log house and embankments on the east side.
After choosing the construction site, one had to decide on the type of crossing of the Neisse. Either a long embankment on the east bank or a long bridge across the valley. The height of the crown of the embankment to be filled should have been about the same as that of the current bridge. Accordingly, the embankment bottom would have required a large width and thus also made a large area of fertile land unusable. The costs and the time required would also have been higher than for a long bridge structure. Last but not least, the effort for actually crossing the river bed would have been about the same as for a long bridge structure. So the decision was made for the viaduct.
construction
The Lower Silesian-Märkische Eisenbahngesellschaft gave the contract for the construction. In 1844 construction began on the viaduct, which was built according to the plans of the chief civil engineer of the NME building director Ludwig Henz under the supervision of his assistant chief engineer Friedrich Weishaupt (1815–1869) and was carried out by the Görlitz master mason and contractor Gustav Kießler . Most of the granite required for this was extracted from the Limasberg (Liebsteiner Berg) in the Königshain Mountains , with half the mountain being removed. Stone was also extracted from the Schwalbenberg and the quarries on the Totenstein. Hochkirch sandstone was used for the cornices and railings. The stone blocks were transported to the banks of the Neisse in horse-drawn carts, where they were carved and shaped. In November 1846 the construction of the railway line from Kohlfurt reached Hennersdorf . From then on, railway operations between Kohlfurt and Hennersdorf were commenced as an interim station for the city of Görlitz. From then on, work on the viaduct was accelerated by working on the construction site at night and giving the workers bonuses.
On June 26th, 1847, at 2 p.m., the keystone was laid. For this purpose, the scaffolding surrounding the building was festively decorated. Construction director Henz, senior engineer Weishaupt, master builder Fischer and contractor Kießler each hit three trowels of mortar on the keystone before it was inserted into the gap. This was followed by the obligatory three hammer blows and the words: “The stone is plumb and scales. The vault is closed. ”The remaining construction work on the railings, cornices and vaults dragged on until August of the same year.
Opening and operation until 1945
After the rest of the work was completed, the first steam locomotive crossed the viaduct on August 26, 1847 and was greeted with a ceremony at Görlitz station at around 6 p.m. Six days later on September 1, 1847, the inaugural train from Kohlfurt drove over the viaduct to Görlitz, which the inaugural train of the Saxon-Silesian railroad also reached on the same day. The old water pumping station was located in a half-timbered house near the viaduct between the Obermühle and the Blockhaus until 1903, which pumped the Neisse water to the level of the station using a locomotive in order to supply the steam locomotives with heating water.
The costs for the bridge construction alone amounted to a total of exactly 640,668 thalers, 26 silver groschen and 3 pfennigs , which corresponded to about a third of the planned total construction costs for the Kohlfurt – Görlitz railway line. The proceeds from the sale of armaments after completion of the work were able to reduce the construction costs again 7,751 thalers and 17 silver groschen. About half of the construction costs were accounted for by material for the masonry work, such as: cement, connecting, corner, shell, broken and vaulted stones made of granite as well as sandstone for parapets and cornices.
The viaduct has adorned the viaduct since its inauguration, as can be seen on the view of the viaduct from 1855 on each of the two western river pillars with a polished granite tablet. On the first was the name of the reigning Prussian King Friedrich Wilhelm IV. And the year of construction and on the second the client - the NME. After the nationalization of the NME in 1850, as previously planned, the second slab was exchanged for a granite slab with the names of four master builders involved (construction director Henz, senior engineer Weishaupt, master builder Fischer and master mason Kießler). Both records no longer exist today. Only on the western pillar was a framed plaque set in again after the reconstruction. On this is written "BUILT 1844–1847 DESTROYED 1945 REBUILDED 1952–1954". The adjacent pillar was no longer given a plaque after the reconstruction.
When the line was opened, the railway line was still single-tracked across the bridge. It was not until 1860 that the Neisse crossing, like the railway line to Kohlfurt, was double-tracked. Since September 1865 trains have also been running over the viaduct in the direction of Lauban and a year later as far as the Giant Mountains in Hirschberg . Another innovation did not come until the 1920s with the advancing electrification of the Silesian Mountain Railway . In 1923 the contact wire reached the Neisse Viaduct and thus also the Görlitz train station. On September 1, 1923, electrical operations began and the first express train hauled by an electric locomotive (D 192 Breslau – Hirschberg – Görlitz – Berlin) crossed the viaduct. Before the war, over thirty pairs of passenger trains crossed the viaduct every day.
In the 1920s, the viaduct was a coveted backdrop for the vehicles manufactured in Görlitz's wagon construction. In 1936 the crown of the viaduct was scaffolded and renovated.
On May 7, 1945, the last day of the Second World War , so-called demolition squads of the Wehrmacht blew up the viaduct in the evening hours. The bridge's three western arches fell in ruins into the river bed. The already mentioned granite memorial plaques and the contact wire also fall into the Neisse valley. Only the two tracks that led over the viaduct were still hanging between the two parts of the bridge and connected them to one another until autumn 1945. Some refugees from Silesia used the floating tracks as a retreat on the western side of the Neisse, and Görlitzers from the eastern part of the city, today's Zgorzelec , used the tracks on their inspection tours to their houses east of the Neisse. Soon afterwards the tracks were cut and from then on they hung down into the valley on the rubble mountain.
Reconstruction and operation to this day
With the Görlitz Agreement - a border treaty between the People's Republic of Poland and the GDR - in July 1950, the way was paved for the reconstruction of the Neisse Viaduct and the subsequent start of cross-border traffic over the bridge. In 1952, Polish experts started the reconstruction. Five years later - on May 22, 1957 - the railway border crossing was ceremonially opened to traffic. The rebuilt western part of the viaduct is clearly distinguished by the lighter color of the rock and a simpler parapet. Since the bridge from now on a border crossing was based items of the border troops on the German side in the vicinity of the cabin and on the Polish side in a sentry box amidst the bridge its position. Soviet units also guarded the railway bridge until 1958. Passenger traffic over the viaduct rose again in the following years, but cross-border freight traffic lagged far behind the freight traffic of the pre-war years. After the fall of the Wall, a pair of express trains and three cross-border interregional pairs ran the viaduct every day . After the discontinuation of interregional traffic in Germany, traffic was completely idle for a short time.
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Since February 28, 2009, three pairs of passenger trains have again been running over the viaduct between Dresden and Wroclaw. The electrically operated train traffic was not resumed after the reconstruction of the viaduct until today, because after the war in autumn 1945 the contact wire was dismantled by the Soviet Union to the west and east of the Neisse. In 2011 it was announced in the local press that the Polish Railways, which owns the viaduct, would renovate the railway bridge by 2013 and at the same time prepare for electrification.
Construction work was finished at the end of 2013. Renovation and maintenance work was carried out on the tracks and the substructure. The permissible speed could be increased from 30 to 80 kilometers per hour. Heavy freight trains can now also pass the viaduct. PKP had the parapet removed and replaced with a new one. Furthermore, new sand catchers for drainage were built in, lights were installed and new control systems for rail traffic were installed. The renovation cost 6.6 million euros. On November 27, a test drive with a Polish class ST46 diesel locomotive took place. Since the renovation of the bridge, passenger and freight trains can travel at speeds of up to 80 km / h.
Building
The viaduct is an arched bridge made of granite stone, which was mainly carved in the Königshain mountains. The stones for the infill masonry were partly obtained from the immediate vicinity of the construction site. However, these granite stones were very irregular and could therefore not be used for the mantle or ashlar stones. The granite stones used had a density of 2.586 to 2.701 t / m³ and an average resistance to pressure of around 100 MPa (14,544 pounds per square inch ).
The first around 88 meters (280 feet pr. ) From the east the viaduct runs in a slight arc with a radius of around 1130 meters (3600 feet pr.) To reach the highest point on the east bank and at the same time ensure a right-angled crossing of the river .
Due to the flatter ascent on the Zgorzelec side, most of the bridge structure is on the Polish side. The flatter part with its smaller arches remained undestroyed during the Second World War and is still largely in its original state. The western rebuilt part differs significantly in the color of the stone used. The origin of the rock used for the reconstruction and structural differences to the rest of the structure are not known.
Arch construction
The structure, about 8.6 meters wide below the cornice, consists of 30 round arches, which carry the double-track route 475 meters wide and 35 meters above the Neisse valley. It is divided into six sections, each delimited by a wider abutment pillar. These go over into a bulge of the sandstone railing at the top. They served as an alternative for people on the viaduct. Furthermore, between 1923 and 1945, the bulges were where the power pylons were with such a wide boom that they stretched the contact wire over the left and right track. Some masts are still on the east side of the viaduct in front of the long curve to the Zgorzelec train station ( formerly Görlitz-Moys ). The length of the sections is roughly the same and as the arcs decrease in size towards the east, there is an increasing number of arcs per section in the same direction.
The three furthest arches on the west side, which also span the river bed, measure 22.28 meters (71 feet pr.). It closes three arches with 18.83 meters (60 feet pr.), Five with 12.55 meters (40 feet pr.), Eighteen with 9.42 meters (30 feet pr.) And an arch with a clear width of 7.53 meters (24 feet pr.) At. The semicircular arches are 0.78 meters (2½ feet pr.) On the 30-foot arches, 0.86 meters (2¾ feet pr.) On the 40-foot arches, and 1.10 on the 60-foot arches Meters (3½ feet pr.) Thick.
To ensure drainage , the masonry above the arches under the ballast bed of the superstructure at the 40-foot arches and the easternmost 60-foot arch of the preserved bridge section is designed in such a way that the masonry slopes slightly towards the middle of an arch. The masonry is also slightly sloping from the sides towards the center of the structure, so that the water collects over the center of an arch and from there takes the shortest route out through a pipe. The wastewater falls from above without a pipe in free fall towards the ground. These openings in the middle of the arches can still be clearly seen on the east bank of the viaduct. In the rebuilt section of the 60- and 71-foot arches, the drainage was probably implemented differently after the reconstruction, as the drainage pipes are partly on the sides of the arches. Until the destruction in 1945, the drainage of the areas above the destroyed 60- and 71-foot arches was carried out using the technique described above. The 24- and 30-foot arches have had a different drainage system since they were built, in which the collecting reservoir is located in the middle of a pillar and from which a drainage pipe leads laterally into the arch.
Pillars and cornices
So-called relief arches are located above the pillars of the 40-, 60- and 71-foot arch groups, although it is not known whether this also applies to the 71- and 60-foot arches rebuilt in the 1950s. The relief arches are used on the one hand to free the pillars from unnecessary mass caused by the filler material and on the other hand to drain away water that has penetrated the vault. The water could drain through the large openings on the pillars. The pillars of the 30-foot arches, in turn, are backed up to two thirds of the height of the vault and then aligned tangentially against the apex of the arch.
The group pillar of the 71-foot arch group (third pillar from the west) is the widest pillar at around 6.28 meters (20 feet pr.) And stands in the middle of the river bed. The center pillars of the same group measure 4.39 meters (14 feet pr.). The narrowest pillars are the central pillars of the 30-foot arch group and are located on the east bank between the 30-foot arches and measure around 1.88 meters (6 feet pr.). The group pillars of the 30s arches are 3.45 meters (11 feet pr.) Wide. In the 60 foot arch group, the group pillar is 5.96 meters (19 feet pr.) And the center pillar is 3.77 meters (12 feet pr.) Wide. In the 40 arches, the group pillar is 4.08 meters (13 feet pr.) And the central pillar 2.67 meters (8½ feet pr.) Thick.
All pillars are reinforced downwards on each side by 1/48 of their height, so that they are 1/24 wider on the foundation base than at the height of the transom . In their width in the direction of flow, the piers were given a reinforcement step of around 470 millimeters (1.5 feet) approximately every 6.3 meters (20 feet square). Furthermore, the pillars standing in the river bed were given a widened base, which tapers in the direction of flow on the upper and lower water side (curvature of the flow).
The base of each pillar is a 1½ foot thick layer of ashlar. The bricks were braced together and should have at least 18 square feet of storage space. A similar, but only 1¼ foot thick, binding layer was to be given to the foundations of the pillars at heights of 4 feet and in the rising pillars at heights of 6 feet. The space between two binding layers consists of a wreath made of solid ashlar for the water pillars and of mantle stones for the pillars on land and rubble masonry that fills the interior. The binding layers should prevent the infill masonry from settling differently within the high pillars.
The western front pillar is located on a horizontally aligned rock terrace on the steep granite rock wall. The location of the eastern front pillar was mainly determined by the material required for the embankment, which was obtained during the work for the cuts of the Kohlfurter Railway east of the former city of Görlitz (today near the Zgorzelec Miasto stop ).
literature
- Henz : The construction of the Neisse Viaduct near Görlitz on the Lower Silesian-Märkische Railway . In: Journal of Construction . Vol. 5, issue 6/8, 1855, col. 281–344 ( digital.slub-dresden.de ).
- Neisse Viaduct, Görlitz . In: Atlas to the journal for construction . Vol. 5, 1855, pp. 24–26 and 37–41 ( opus.kobv.de [PDF]). .
- Wilfried Rettig : Görlitz railway junction . Bufe-Fachbuch-Verlag, Egglham 1994, ISBN 3-922138-53-5 .
Web links
Individual evidence
- ^ Friedrich Wilhelm Hermann Weishaupt. In: Zeitschrift für Bauwesen , 20th year 1870, column 453–458.
- ^ Carl G. Th. Neumann: History of Görlitz . E. Remer, Görlitz 1850, p. 713 ( reader.digitale-sammlungen.de ).
- ↑ Ralph Schermann: When the border police got a phone . In: Saxon newspaper . November 29, 2008 ( saechsische.de [accessed April 13, 2020]).
- ↑ Görlitz Neisse viaduct is being repaired. Sächsische Zeitung, archived from the original on March 5, 2016 ; Retrieved May 13, 2011 .
- ↑ Viaduct is to be renovated by 2013. (No longer available online.) Sächsische Zeitung, formerly in the original ; Retrieved May 13, 2011 . ( Page no longer available , search in web archives )
- ↑ Scaffolding is now falling on the viaduct . In: Saxon newspaper . November 28, 2013 ( sz-online.de [accessed December 4, 2013]).
- ↑ kolonia.trade.gov.pl: Railway viaduct between Zgorzelec and Görlitz back in operation . (No longer available online.) Archived from the original on December 27, 2014 ; Retrieved June 19, 2014 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ plk-sa.pl: Wykaz maksymalnych prędkości - autobusy szynowe i EZT. (PDF) Retrieved June 20, 2016 (Polish).
- ↑ plk-sa.pl: Wykaz maksymalnych prędkości - składy wagonow. (PDF) Retrieved June 20, 2016 (Polish).
- ↑ plk-sa.pl: Wykaz maksymalnych prędkości - pociągi towarow. (PDF) Retrieved June 20, 2016 (Polish).
- ↑ a b c Neisse Viaduct, Görlitz. (Details of drainage and cornices). In: Atlas to the journal for construction. Vol. 5, 1855, p. 41, web link to the drawing (Architekturmuseum TU Berlin) .
- ↑ a b c Neisse Viaduct, Görlitz. (Floor plan, elevation, longitudinal section, elevation, cross-sections, scaffolding). In: Atlas to the journal for construction. Vol. 5, 1855, p. 26, web link to the drawing (Architekturmuseum TU Berlin) .
- Henz : The construction of the Neisse Viaduct near Görlitz on the Lower Silesian-Märkische Railway . In: Journal of Construction . Vol. 5, issue 6/8, 1855, col. 281–344 ( digital.slub-dresden.de ).
- Wilfried Rettig : Görlitz railway junction . Bufe-Fachbuch-Verlag, Egglham 1994, ISBN 3-922138-53-5 .
- Wilfried Rettig: Railways in the border triangle. East Saxony (D), Lower Silesia (PL), North Bohemia (CZ) . tape 1 : History of the main routes, operating points, electrification and route descriptions . EK-Verlag, Freiburg (Breisgau) 2010, ISBN 978-3-88255-732-9 .