Theiss valley bridge

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Theiss valley bridge in Niedernhausen

As Theißtal Bridge three viaducts are in Niedernhausen in the German low mountain ranges Taunus ( Hessen called). There are two motorway bridges and a railway bridge.

Highway bridge

The two motorway bridges next to each other

The first and actual motorway bridge was built between 1937 and 1939 as part of the A 3 between Frankfurt am Main and Cologne and spans the narrow Theiss valley with a maximum height of 46 m for a total length of 507 m. The 16 arches with constant span rest on 15 pillars. The bridge probably goes back to a design by Paul Bonatz , who was responsible for numerous traffic structures at the time. The bridge has a reinforced concrete core and is clad with handcrafted reddish melaphyr stone from the Palatinate , which also served as formwork. Due to its striking shape as an arched bridge, the Theiss valley bridge is the landmark of Niedernhausen. The building is a listed building .

In the 1970s the A3 was widened from two to three lanes. Since the old bridge was too narrow for this, a new girder bridge in reinforced concrete was built next to it from 1974 to 1976 , which takes up the pillar spacing and the height of the old bridge so as not to destroy the image of the old bridge when viewed from Niedernhausen. From then on the autobahn ran on the old bridge towards Cologne, on the new one to Frankfurt.

In 2009 the pavement was renewed on both carriageways, the drainage improved and the noise protection wall increased on the side facing Niedernhausen.

Railway bridge

The Theiss valley bridge on the ICE line

From 1998 to 2000, the third was Theißtal Bridge , as one of 18 major viaducts of ICE - high-speed line Cologne-Rhine / Main . The 484 m long and 50 m high prestressed concrete girder bridge stands at a slight distance to the west (into the valley) of the motorway bridges, without taking up their shape, and forms a slight angle with them: at the southern abutment it is about 50 meters laterally from the new motorway bridge north about 80 meters, it also towers over this by about six meters. The longitudinal slope of the railway bridge is 6 per thousand.

In the mid-1990s, planning provided for the gradient of the railway bridge to be up to 8.5 m above the level of the trunk road bridge. At the end of 1995, the planned length of the structure was 484 m.

The bridge is one of the most controversial structures on the new line. The community of Niedernhausen sued against the planning approval decision and claimed several blocked properties . A complaint by the municipality before the Administrative Court (VGH) was dismissed in an urgent procedure . The start of construction was delayed by nine months; the last lawsuit (before the Higher Administrative Court ) was dismissed in October 2001 after the bridge was completed. At the beginning of April 2000, the VGH Kassel canceled the planning approval decision in the area of ​​the bridge due to loopholes, without imposing a construction stop. As a justification, the court stated that DB had left open whether the bridge would be equipped with a ballast bed or a fixed track (with or without sound absorbers). In the opinion of the court, the planned two-meter-high noise barriers would not have been sufficient if they had been designed without a sound absorber. In addition, the court ordered DB AG to measure the noise level three months or two years after commissioning and, if necessary, to improve the noise protection. The community of Niedernhausen and several residents who lived around 300 m from the bridge had sued.

The eleven bridge spans, each with a span of 44 m, were created using a 560 t advancing armor. A total of 14,000 m³ of concrete and 1,500 t of concrete and 280 t of prestressing steel were used. Part of the pillars was up to 30 m deep bored piles of 1.5 m diameter founded . By mid-1999, two thirds of the superstructure had been concreted. The shell of the superstructure was completed in November 1999.

The bridge is provided with two meter high noise barriers on both sides . On one wall of the abutments, hanging places were provided as winter quarters for bats .

The concrete work was completed in June 2000. The slab track was installed at the beginning of 2001.

Attack attempt

On the morning of March 20, 2020, a train driver of an ICE noticed a restless run of his train while driving over the bridge. In a subsequent investigation, railway employees found that 123 sleeper brackets were deliberately loosened over a length of around 80 meters. The Hesse State Criminal Police Office took over the investigation. The route was closed to train traffic at 8:13 a.m. The following night, a suspect was arrested after receiving a letter of confession. The accused is being investigated for attempted murder and dangerous interference with rail traffic .

Web links

Commons : Theiss Valley Bridge  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ State Office for the Preservation of Monuments Hesse (ed.): Theißtalbrücke In: DenkXweb, online edition of cultural monuments in Hesse
  2. ↑ Werner Stoepler: More noise protection in Theiss valley. (No longer available online.) Wiesbadener Kurier , May 29, 2009, formerly in the original ; Retrieved May 22, 2010 .  ( Page no longer available , search in web archives )@1@ 2Template: Toter Link / www.wiesbadener-kurier.de
  3. ↑ Noise protection wall on A3 will be increased. (No longer available online.) Wiesbadener Tagblatt , July 17, 2009, formerly in the original ; Retrieved May 22, 2010 .  ( Page no longer available , search in web archives )@1@ 2Template: Toter Link / www.wiesbadener-tagblatt.de
  4. ↑ a b c At a speed of 300 at a height of 50 meters over the Theiss valley . In: On the subject , ZDB -ID 2115698-0 , edition 1/2001, February 2001, pp. 9-11.
  5. ↑ a b Deutsche Bahn AG (ed.): Seven fairy tale stories about the new DB line Cologne – Rhine / Main . Brochure, 36 pages, Berlin, no year (approx. 2002), p. 6
  6. ^ Deutsche Bahn AG, network division, NBS Cologne – Rhein / Main, project management (publisher): New Cologne – Rhine / Main line: Hesse area, planning section PA 32, Wallrabenstein - Wörsdorf - Idstein - Niedernhausen . Folded brochure, six A4 pages, Frankfurt am Main, 1995
  7. ^ Deutsche Bahn AG, network division, project management for the Cologne – Rhein / Main line (publisher): route map for the new Cologne-Rhein / Main line . Map from November 1995, Frankfurt 1995
  8. ↑ Notification of planning approval canceled . In: Eisenbahn-Revue International , issue 6/2000, ISSN  1421-2811 , p. 243.
  9. ↑ Without author: The project for the new Cologne – Rhine / Main line . In: Eisenbahn JOURNAL: Tempo 300 - The new Cologne – Frankfurt line . In: Eisenbahn Journal , special edition 3/2002, ISBN 3-89610-095-5 , pp. 34–63
  10. ↑ a b G. Blaasch: The new line between Cologne and Frankfurt ( Memento of 29 November 2015, Internet Archive ). In: Tiefbau , 2000, issue 7, p. 403.
  11. ↑ According to plan on the longest construction site in Germany . In: DBProjekt Köln – Rhein / Main (Ed.): On the subject , Issue 4/1999, Frankfurt am Main, August 1999, pp. 4–7.
  12. ↑ Jörg Diehl, Matthias Gebauer, Sven Röbel, Gerald Traufetter: Sabotaged ICE route perpetrators loosened more than 100 sleepers. In: spiegel.de. March 20, 2020, accessed March 30, 2020 .
  13. ^ Rail traffic: Attempted attack on ICE line in Hesse. In: spiegel.de. March 20, 2020, accessed March 21, 2020 .
  14. ↑ Matthias Bartsch, Matthias Gebauer, Sven Röbel: Rail bolts on bridge loosened: arrest after attempted attack on ICE line. In: spiegel.de. March 21, 2020, accessed March 21, 2020 .

Coordinates: 50 ° 9 ′ 25 ″  N , 8 ° 18 ′ 22 ″  E