Schildescher Viaduct

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Coordinates: 52 ° 3 ′ 17 ″  N , 8 ° 34 ′ 12 ″  E

Schildescher Viaduct
Schildescher Viaduct
Schildescher Viaduct
Convicted Hamm – Minden railway line
Subjugated Johannisbach
place Bielefeld - Schildesche
construction Arch bridge
overall length 360 m
width 2 × 10 m
Longest span 40 m
height 16 m
completion 1985 (1847)
location
Schildescher Viadukt (North Rhine-Westphalia)
Schildescher Viaduct
Above sea level 90  m above sea level NN

The Schildescher Viadukt is a bridge in the Schildesche district of Bielefeld . The viaduct is a combined vaulted / prestressed concrete bridge and leads the four- track Hamm – Minden railway over 360 meters over the Johannisbachtal . This enabled the important east-west main route from Brake to be led to the height of the ridge, and the ascent to the Bielefelder Pass , a cut in the Teutoburg Forest , could be kept very low.

The original structure erected by the Cologne-Mindener Eisenbahn-Gesellschaft in the 1840s was one of the oldest witnesses to the history of the railways in Germany . The old viaduct of 28  arches was destroyed by Allied air raids in March 1945 . Taking into account the 13 still intact arches, a provisional facility for freight traffic was created in the spring of 1947. The building has existed in its current form since 1985.

history

As part of the main line of the Cologne-Mindener Eisenbahn-Gesellschaft , the structure was initially completed with two tracks in 1847. In the course of the four-track expansion with a separate line for freight traffic , a largely identical second viaduct was built in 1917 just a few meters away parallel to the first.

During the Second World War, according to the Western Allies, the Schildescher Viaduct was one of the two most important German railway bridges next to the Altenbekener Viaduct on the Hamm – Warburg railway line. The Schildescher Viadukt was the target of numerous air raids, which began in the summer of 1941 and were significantly intensified from autumn 1944. From December 1, 1944, as a precaution, an approximately 3.5 kilometers long, winding and incline-rich double-track bypass route (comparable to a rubber band), the so-called "rubber railway", was laid on the eastern side, and its full operation began at the end of February 1945.

The main aim of the Allied air raids was to destroy the transport routes in the western part of the German Reich, the essential war transports of coal and steel from the Ruhr area and thus to break the backbone of the German war economy . In addition to the Schildescher and Altenbeken Viaducts , the Arnsberg Viaduct on the Upper Ruhr Valley Railway was one of the primary destinations. The Western Allies hoped that, with their destruction, the two important east-west connections from Berlin via Hamm to the Ruhr area on the routes Berlin - Magdeburg , Magdeburg - Braunschweig , Braunschweig - Hanover and Hanover - Minden or Berlin - Halle , Halle - Kassel , Kassel - To be able to interrupt Warburg and Warburg - Paderborn permanently. The Upper Ruhr Valley Railway played a subordinate role here, as it was only an alternative route in the event of disruptions on the main lines from Minden or Warburg that merged in Hamm .

  • Schildescher Viaduct, 1917

  • The Schildescher Viaduct after its destruction in March 1945

The extremely solid Schildescher double viaduct withstood the attacks for a long time, during which a total of over 3,500  tons of bombs were dropped. On March 14, 1945, the No. 617 Squadron of the Royal Air Force first launched ten-tonne Grand Slam bombs , up until then the heaviest of their kind. The brick arches of both viaducts were completely destroyed over a length of 130 meters. At least 50 residents were killed in Schildesche.

Because of its immense importance, the western (freight rail) line was provisionally rebuilt after the end of the war with a double-track SKR makeshift bridge (standardized steel truss bridge type Schaper - Krupp - Reichsbahn ) from the pioneering equipment of the Wehrmacht and goods traffic was again available from April 1947 to disposal. Until the completion of the new eastern bridge in the mid-1960s, passenger traffic continued to use the temporary "rubber railway ", with long or heavy trains also with leader locomotives that were stationed at Brake station.

Since the operation of the bypass route with its level crossings caused high annual costs, there were plans in the 1950s to restore the eastern route for long-distance passenger traffic by building an earth dam , but after considerable resistance, the German Federal Railroad decided in 1960 to pass through the destroyed passenger railway viaduct to replace a 160 meter long prestressed concrete bridge. After the commissioning of the new prestressed concrete bridge for long-distance passenger traffic in the summer of 1964, the "rubber railway" was completely dismantled. The provisional steel truss bridge for the freight railway viaduct built in 1947 only replaced the prestressed concrete construction built from 1983 to 1985, with which the two viaducts now have largely identical architecture.

Since 1982 the Johannisbach has been dammed to the Obersee , which lies west of the viaduct. The dam is located a few meters east of the viaduct.

literature

  • Axel Frick: When the earth shook in Schildesche: The history of the viaduct . 2nd Edition. Heka-Verlag, Leopoldshöhe 1994, ISBN 3-928700-11-1 .
  • Wolfgang Klee: Railways in Westphalia: From the beginning to the present . Aschendorff, Münster 2001, ISBN 3-402-05260-1 .

Web links

Commons : Schildescher Viadukt  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Ulrike Spichal: Way of St. James. Way of the pilgrims in Westphalia . tape 10 . Bachem, Cologne 2013, ISBN 978-3-7616-2423-4 , p. 116–118 ( excerpt [accessed May 17, 2013]).
  2. ↑ a b The railway viaduct in Bielefeld-Schildesche . Discussion in the “Forum geschichtsspuren.de”, January 2012; accessed on December 13, 2014.
  3. ^ The early raids , part of the private website The destruction of the Bielefeld viaduct , accessed on December 13, 2014.
  4. ^ The Gummibahn , part of the private website The destruction of the Bielefeld viaduct .
  5. ^ The final raid , part of the private website The destruction of the Bielefeld viaduct
  6. ↑ Amélie Förster: When the earth shook in Schildesche. In: New Westphalian. March 14, 2010, accessed May 17, 2013 .
  7. ^ The damage , part of the private website The destruction of the Bielefeld viaduct
  8. ↑ Initial rebuilding , part of the private website The destruction of the Bielefeld viaduct .
  9. ↑ The unpopular plan and The second stage , part of the private website The destruction of the Bielefeld viaduct