Rhine bridge in Worms

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Coordinates: 49 ° 39 ′ 2 "  N , 8 ° 22 ′ 23"  E

Rhine bridge in Worms
Rhine bridge in Worms
River bridge, looking towards the right bank of the Rhine
Convicted Riedbahn
Subjugated Rhine
place Worms
construction Steel truss bridge
overall length 930 m + 20 m
Longest span 118.3 m
completion 1960
location
Rhine Bridge Worms (Rhineland-Palatinate)
Rhine bridge in Worms

The Rhine Bridge Worms is a double-track railway bridge that spans the Rhine at river kilometer 445.45 as part of the Worms – Biblis railway line north of Worms .

prehistory

From 1851, there were heated debates in Worms about the location of the train station when it became clear that the city would finally get a railway connection. The construction company Hessische-Ludwigs-Eisenbahngesellschaft (HLB) favored a route west of the city with the argument: Only this position would leave enough distance to the Rhine to later have space for a curve with a sufficient radius to a Rhine bridge. This long-term discussion was one of the reasons that delayed the railway project: because until it was not clear where the station would be positioned, the Ludwig Railway Company could not acquire any land. The Ludwigsbahn ultimately prevailed against the city's wishes to the contrary.

Bridge from 1900

In 1868, as part of the concession for the Darmstadt – Worms railway line , the HLB was obliged to build a bridge over the Rhine as soon as the financial situation permitted. The traffic was handled from 1870 to 1901 with the Worms – Rosengarten ferry, a ferry connection between Worms port and the Rosengarten station on the right bank of the Rhine . As a result, there were heated discussions as to whether a combined bridge for road and rail or two bridges was the better solution. The Rhine crossing for the railway between the Grand Duchy of Hesse and the HLB was only contractually fixed in 1894, with the state having to provide financial help. This was preceded by massive lobbying by the industrialist Cornelius Wilhelm von Heyl from Worms , who was also a member of the Reichstag and the first chamber of the Hessian estates . In 1896 the construction was first put out to tender, but the start of construction was delayed until 1898 due to the nationalization of the Hessische-Ludwigs-Eisenbahngesellschaft in 1897. On March 7, 1898, Mayor Wilhelm Küchler opened the construction work.

The Duisburger Aktiengesellschaft für Eisenindustrie und Brückenbau, formerly Johann Caspar Harkort, was commissioned with the construction of the 961 m long structure , whose design, created together with the architect Georg Frentzen , won first prize in a competition. Over the Rhine three double-track iron were arch - truss with drawstring and spans of 102.2 meters in the surrounding areas and 116.8 m built in the middle field. This type of construction was used for the first time in Germany for a railway bridge and was later used more often , as with the Cologne South Bridge . The river bridge was framed by two massive gate towers. The foreland bridge on the right bank of the Rhine had two single-track superstructures, each with 17 single-span girders and 34.5 m span. These were made with parallel strut truss beams and an overhead roadway. The river piers were founded on 156 m² caissons , the remaining piers on concrete foundations between sheet pile walls . After two years and six months of construction, the bridge was opened on November 30, 1900 in the presence of Grand Duke Ernst Ludwig and put into operation one day later.

Due to increased line loads, the bridge superstructures were strengthened in 1931 and 1932 and a continuous ballast bed was installed. Towards the end of the Second World War , the Rhine Bridge was blown up on March 20, 1945. The river superstructures and two flood bridges were destroyed.

Bridge from 1948

Commissioning October 1948

In 1946, on the instructions of the French military government , which also provided the design, the construction of a temporary bridge began. It was built parallel to and 26 m upstream of the ruins of the old bridge and was built as a combined single-track railway and road bridge. This pivoting of the bridge axis required the existing bridge ramps to be pivoted in the structure itself, for which new river pillars had to be erected. This provisional solution was so more expensive than the two-track bridge built later in 1960. The opening was spanned with six fields with two buttress girders and an underlying carriageway. The edge field on the Wormser Ufer had a span of 48.6 m, the remaining five fields had a span of 61.2 m. The system height of the two main girders, 7.42 m apart, was 7.5 m. The superstructure stood on half-timbered pillars, which carried the load into the subsoil via pile head plates and rammed steel pipes. Part of the foreland bridge had to be rebuilt in order to swivel into the old route. This was done with an eight-span bridge with a standard support width of 24.0 m. The superstructure consisted of 1.7 m high solid wall girders below . The building was commissioned on October 15, 1948.

The significance of this provisional solution for rail traffic was only minor, as the bridge mostly had to be available for road traffic during the day. After the completion of the Nibelungen Bridge in 1953, the bridge was only used for rail traffic.

Bridge from 1960

In the mid-1950s, planning began for the final reconstruction of the railway bridge over the Rhine near Worms. In the old route axis on the old foundations, a three-span, postless strut truss bridge made of steel with the continuous girder as a structural system in the longitudinal direction was built as a river bridge . The spans of the 327.1 m long structure are 104.4 m in the peripheral areas and 118.3 m in the middle area. The framework has parallel belts with a system height of 9.0 m and a roadway below. The foreland bridge on the right bank of the Rhine with 17 openings corresponds, except for the rebuilt parts of the prewar bridge, to a parallel-chorded truss beam construction with an overhead carriageway and pillar spacing of 35.25 m.

The new bridge train went into operation on May 29, 1960, and in 1964 it was electrified .

Foreland bridge on the right bank of the Rhine from 2012

Construction work 2010

From 2009 to 2012, the superstructures of the foreland bridge on the right bank of the Rhine, which were mostly from 1900, were replaced by a new superstructure with a gravel roadway. It consists of a double-track composite construction with two parallel-belted diagonal trusses made of steel and an overhead deck made of reinforced concrete .

The static system is a 603.7 m long continuous beam with a construction height of 5.0 m. The 17 pillars were preserved. The eastern abutment is the new fixed point of the bridge, which transfers the longitudinal forces, including braking and starting, into the subsoil. Therefore it was replaced by a new building on a bored pile foundation . At the western end of the bridge on the Rhine side is the transition to the Rhine bridge. There a compensation plate was placed under each track and a rail extension for longitudinal movements of a maximum of 700 mm in the track .

In order to be able to maintain rail traffic at least on a single track during the entire construction period, the new approach bridge was first built parallel to the old one, including ballast, track and overhead line. Then the entire 17,000 ton construction was pushed in by one meter in July 2011 and another 4.5 meters on January 18, 2012. From April 2, 2012, the bridge over the Rhine could be used on two tracks again.

"Worms Bridge" stop

The Worms Bridge stop was located on the foreland bridge on the left bank of the Rhine, directly in front of the river bridge .

literature

in alphabetical order by authors / editors

Web links

Commons : Rheinbrücke Worms  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Döhn, p. 83.
  2. ↑ Döhn, p. 72.
  3. ↑ Häussler, p. 10.
  4. ^ Fritz Reuter: Karl Hofmann and "the new Worms. Stadtentwicklung und Kommunalbau 1882–1918 “ = Sources and research on Hessian history 91. Hessian Historical Commission Darmstadt and Historical Commission for Hesse , Darmstadt and Marburg 1993. ISBN 3-88443-180-3 , p. 251.
  5. ↑ §§ 5ff. Agreement between the Grand Duchy of Hesse and HLB dated November 3, 1894 on the extension of railway facilities . In: Eisenbahndirektion Mainz (Hrsg.): Collection of the published official gazettes . Born in 1897, p. 43ff.
  6. ↑ Cf. Bernhard Hager: "Absorption by Prussia" or "Benefit for Hesse"? The Prussian-Hessian Railway Community from 1896/97 . In: Andreas Hedwig (Ed.): On iron rails, as fast as lightning . Hessisches Staatsarchiv Marburg 2008. ISBN 978-3-88964-196-0 , p. 99f.
  7. ↑ Reuter, p. 253 and Note 115.
  8. ↑ Reuter, p. 253; Eisenbahndirektion Mainz (Ed.): Collection of the official gazettes published on December 1, 1900. Volume 4, No. 55. Announcement No. 529, p. 410.
  9. ^ Max Schweinitz: Ten years of reconstruction at the Mainz Federal Railway Directorate . In: Bundesbahndirektion Mainz (ed.): The Bundesbahndirektion Mainz. Festschrift for the 60th anniversary of the founding of the Mainz Railway Directorate . Carl Röhrig, Darmstadt 1956 = special print from Die Bundesbahn 22/1956, pp. 53–57 (56).
  10. ^ Max Schweinitz: Ten years of reconstruction at the Mainz Federal Railway Directorate . In: Bundesbahndirektion Mainz (ed.): The Bundesbahndirektion Mainz. Festschrift for the 60th anniversary of the founding of the Mainz Railway Directorate . Carl Röhrig, Darmstadt 1956 = special print from Die Bundesbahn 22/1956, pp. 53–57 (56).
  11. ^ Deutsche Bahn AG: New, 17,000-tonne Rhine foreland bridge pushed into the Worms-Biblis railway line . Press release from January 18, 2012
The next bridge up the river: Nibelungen Bridge
Worms 		Bridges over the Rhine The next bridge downstream:
Rheinbrücke Gernsheim (destroyed)
Weisenauer Brücke