Ship bridge Worms
Coordinates: 49 ° 37 ′ 55 ″ N , 8 ° 22 ′ 46 ″ E
| Ship bridge Worms | ||
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| Official name | Ship bridge | |
| Convicted | Road from Worms to Lampertheim | |
| Subjugated | Rhine | |
| place | Worms and Lampertheim-Rosengarten | |
| construction | Floating bridge made from boats | |
| start of building | 1854 | |
| completion | 1855 | |
| opening | June 14, 1855 | |
| closure | March 26, 1900 (replaced by the Nibelungen Bridge in Worms ) | |
| location | ||
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The Worms ship bridge crossed the Rhine east of the city of Worms in the second half of the 19th century. It was replaced by the Ernst Ludwig Bridge in 1900 .
Forerunner: ferry service
The oldest written evidence of a ferry service near Worms is received in a document from the year 858 in which Ludwig the German confirms the corresponding rights of the Lorsch Monastery . In the centuries that followed, the ferry rights held various institutions, including the Lorsch Monastery, but also the Worms Monastery , the von Dalberg family , the Heilig-Geist-Hospital in Worms , the St. Martin Monastery in Worms and two other noble families. These gave their rights to ferrymen, who paid a lease for it and refinanced themselves with the ferry fee. The ferry system, which is important for the economy of the city, was increasingly seen as an urban matter, as documented by the city ferry regulations issued around 1400, which, in addition to the tariffs, also stipulated the order of translation and the operating times. At that time there were around 15 ferrymen working.
The ship bridge
Planning
The first plans for a ship bridge as a more permanent form of a Rhine crossing date from 1720/21. They were initiated by Franz Ludwig von Pfalz-Neuburg , the Bishop of Worms , who wanted to improve the connection to his possessions on the right bank of the Rhine. The already quite specific plans were not implemented for unknown reasons.
A second project was being planned from 1787. In the meantime the construction of highways , especially in the neighboring Electoral Palatinate , had progressed and the traffic increased. But the First Coalition War , starting in 1792, prevented it from being implemented. After the left bank of the Rhine had been annexed to the French state, the council of the city of Worms tried in 1798 to launch an application to the Directory (the government) in Paris to approve the construction of a ship bridge. This initiative also failed.
A major obstacle to the construction of a ship bridge were the legal and ownership relationships in the ferry service, which were not clarified until 1831, when the state, now the Grand Duchy of Hesse , took over from the last owners, the city of Worms and the hospital fund as legal successors to the Holy Geist Hospital for 12,800 guilders . The contract concluded about this contained the provision that the state undertook to build a ship bridge. But again nothing happened at first.
construction
In 1842, the two Worms members of the state estates of the Grand Duchy of Hesse , Wilhelm Valckenberg and Friedrich von Dörnberg , applied for the construction of a ship bridge again. The application was approved in the same year. Since then the construction of the bridge has in principle been undisputed and preliminary investigations have been carried out. In 1847 the estates set various conditions for the construction: The city of Worms was supposed to build a winter harbor at its own expense so that the bridge could be brought to safety there when the ice fell . The city complied with this in 1853/54. The missing bridge became an increasing problem with the flourishing of industry in Worms, as numerous workers came from the reed and were still dependent on the ferry service. In 1852 the deputy Johann Friedrich Eich again applied to the state estates for the construction of a ship bridge, which was also decided. Finally, it was still to be clarified with the Central Commission for Navigation on the Rhine how to regulate shipping traffic on the river in the case of a ship bridge. It was not until June 14, 1855 that the ship bridge could finally be inaugurated, at least in the presence of Grand Duke Ludwig III. and the Grand Duchess Mathilde .
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In the long run, the ship bridge was not satisfactory either. It always had to be opened for the also increasing shipping traffic and closed again after the ships had passed, a process that took up to half an hour. In the event of ice or flooding, the bridge had to be driven into the port and Worms then had no connection with the right bank of the Rhine for days or weeks.
When in 1869 the station rose garden as the then end of the Worms side of the river Riedbahn , one was first of Darmstadt, and later from Frankfurt next railway opened, the problems intensified although a ferry was established. This was used for passenger transport and the translation of freight cars .
The End
From around 1880, 25 years after the ship's bridge was inaugurated, the construction of a permanent road bridge was discussed again intensively. Decisive for this were the planning associated with the Rhine regulation , the Rhine flood of 1882 and the increasing labor demand of the Worms industry. The funds for the bridge were released in 1894/95 after intensive lobbying by the Worms deputy Cornelius Wilhelm von Heyl zu Herrnsheim ( Reichstag and first chamber of the estates) and the entrepreneur Nikolaus Andreas Reinhart . Construction began in May 1897. The new, solid road bridge was Inaugurated on March 26, 1900, the ship's bridge had thus served its purpose and was dismantled.
literature
- Gerold Bönnen : Ferries, ports, bridges - Worms and the Rhine until the Nibelungen Bridge was built in 1953 . In: Landesbetrieb Mobility Worms and Worms City Archives (ed.): The new Rhine bridge in Worms. Commemorative publication on its completion in 2008 . Worms-Verlag, Worms 2008. ISBN 978-3-936118-34-6
- Hans Döhn: Railway Policy and Railway Construction in Rheinhessen 1835–1914 = Dissertation at Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz , 1957.
Individual evidence
- ↑ Bönnen, p. 11f.
- ↑ Bönnen, p. 12.
- ↑ Bönnen, p. 15.
- ↑ Bönnen, p. 16.
- ↑ Bönnen, p. 16.
- ↑ Bönnen, p. 17f.
- ↑ Bönnen, p. 18.
- ↑ Döhn, p. 89.
- ↑ Döhn, p. 84.
- ↑ Bönnen, p. 19.
- ↑ Döhn, p. 89.
- ↑ 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.
- ↑ Bönnen, p. 23f.
- ↑ Bönnen, p. 25.