Thur Bridge Ossingen

Thur Bridge Ossingen
	View from the southeast
use	Railway bridge
Convicted	Winterthur – Etzwilen railway line
Subjugated	Thur , km 17.42
place	Ossingen
construction	Truss bridge
overall length	332 m
Number of openings	5
Longest span	72 m
Construction height	7 m
height	42 m
building-costs	1,160,000 CHF
start of building	1874
opening	July 17, 1875
construction time	15 months
	location

47.601505555556 8.7234777777778Coordinates: 47 ° 36 ′ 5 " N , 8 ° 43 ′ 25" E ; CH1903: six hundred and ninety-six thousand six hundred twenty-two / 273104

The Thurbrücke Ossingen is a single-lane railway bridge on the Winterthur – Etzwilen line in the canton of Zurich in Switzerland , which leads south of Ossingen over the Thur . It is the most important lattice bridge with iron pillars still preserved in Switzerland.

location

The bridge is located in the area of the communities Ossingen and Adlikon between the stations Ossingen and Thalheim an der Thur , in the north of the canton of Zurich. The Thur has cut more than 40 m deep into the terrain. On the north side the terrain drops steeply to the Thur, south of the river an approximately 200 m wide, lower lying area has to be spanned.

history

The planning of the railway line from Winterthur to Singen began in 1872 under the Winterthur-Singen-Kreuzlingen Railway Company, which merged with the Winterthur-Zofingen Railway Company to form the Swiss National Railway in 1875 . The core of this line was the crossing of the Thur near Ossingen and the Rhine near Hemishofen .

In 1873 the Decker brothers' company from Cannstatt was entrusted with the construction of the iron structure and the Cless & Teyber company from Vienna with the construction of the substructure for the pillars and the abutments . The foundation work for the southern abutment began in April 1874, after which the Decker brothers began erecting the wooden scaffolding on it. In the autumn they could start building the iron structure. The pillars, the northern abutment and the main girder were skilfully staggered in order to meet the tight schedule that had been agreed with the railway company when the order was placed. With the opening on July 17, 1875, this schedule was exceeded by only 16 days.

Due to the knowledge of the material behavior in half-timbered construction and increasing tensile loads, the bridge was designed too weak for the future. Following the collapse of the bridge near Münchenstein in 1891, the federal government issued the first binding bridge ordinance. The Thur Bridge then had to be checked and, if necessary, adjusted. The Nordostbahn therefore had the superstructure reinforced between 1899 and 1902 and, on behalf of the SBB, the originally tubular iron pillars were replaced by half-timbered structures in 1905 and 1906. The weight of the bridge of 880 t during construction had almost doubled due to these reinforcement measures, but the structure still looks filigree.

The third federal bridge ordinance of 1935 made it necessary to re-examine the structure. The SBB examined various proposals to further strengthen or replace the bridge, but none of them were satisfactory. It is only thanks to special weight and speed restrictions that the bridge can remain in operation without further measures. This is also due to the fact that the railway line now has a significantly reduced volume of traffic.

construction

The superstructure of the 332 m long bridge is designed as a continuous girder with five fields. The two edge spans are each 58 m, the three central spans 72 m. The two main girders are 7 m high and form a box with the upper and lower wind bracing.

The four lattice pillars are 24 m high and stand on concrete foundations with sandstone cladding. The concrete foundations are built on rammed wooden pillars. Only the two abutments are made of masonry, the southern one is 27 m high, the northern 39.5 m. On the east side, a pedestrian walkway is attached to the girder.

The girder and the four truss pillars are connected with around 180,000 rivets. The box girder was assembled on site on a wooden frame. The cast-iron bearings absorb combined longitudinal and rocking movements.

Trivia

The Thurbrücke Ossingen was one of the filming locations of the SRF crime series Der Undertatter in 2015 and was seen in the third episode of the fourth season.