Werratal Bridge Münden
The Werra Valley Bridge is a listed railway bridge in Hann. Münden in southern Lower Saxony , which leads over the Werra . It was completed in 1856 as a stone arch bridge as part of the Hanover Southern Railway . The bridge, which was blown up at the end of World War II , was restored in 1949. After the section via Dransfeld was closed , it has been closed since 1995 due to its disrepair.
description
The foundation stone for the construction of the 160-meter-long, 23-meter-high and almost nine-meter-wide sandstone bridge was laid on April 21, 1852. Its construction lasted until 1856. The construction costs amounted to 161,000 thalers . The bridge had six round arches with a clear width of 17.5 meters. Two train tracks ran over it. The building had architectural elements typical of the time, such as archivolts in the arches , bridge eyes on the pillars, a balustrade with parapet pillars , a round arch frieze with a profiled cornice and tower-like structures in the area of the bridge abutments . In the abutment on the south side there has been an arched passage for the Uferstraße since 1872.
As the end of the Dransfeld ramp, the railway ran from the north from Questenberg over a dam in a large arc over the Werra valley cut and crossed the river on the Werra valley bridge. Shortly afterwards the line passed the freight yard and the Hann Münden station in the direction of Kassel.
The first passenger train passed the bridge on May 8, 1856 before the railway was officially opened on September 23, 1856. In 1891 a footbridge for pedestrians was built in the lower area of the bridge, which was supported on overhangs on the bridge piers.
The landscape-defining bridge was one of the most important engineering structures in the Kingdom of Hanover . After the Fuldatalbrücke Kragenhof from 1855 , 14 km southwest, it was the second largest massive railway bridge of the Hanoverian railways. The original bridge structure is available in miniature versions in the nominal size H0 (scale 1:87) as a kit for model railways .
- Historical views of the original stone arch bridge
Construction drawing
View of Münden around 1856
View through the bridge piers of the city
Bridge with the suburban flower
Demolition and restoration
Towards the end of the Second World War, the Wehrmacht blew up the Werra Valley Bridge on April 6, 1945 to prevent the advance of US troops. After that, the trains coming from Göttingen ended for four years in front of the bridge at the provisional Münden Nord station (post 110). The passengers had to walk several kilometers with their luggage to the Hann Münden train station in order to be able to continue the journey towards Kassel.
In 1948 and 1949 the bridge was restored after the war-damaged remains of the pillars and vaults had been torn down using the bridge abutments. A standardized truss bridge of the type Schaper-Krupp-Reichsbahnbrücke was installed as a permanent temporary measure. A massive bridge pillar from the 19th century serves as the central support. The bridge has been rebuilt on two tracks, as the second track between Dransfeld and Hann. Münden considered. However, only one track was used on the bridge, as the line remained a single track.
After the suspension of passenger traffic on the Dransfelder Rampe in 1980 and goods traffic in 1994, the Werra Valley Bridge was closed in September 1995 because it was dilapidated. It had previously been placed under protection as a monument in 1991 . In 2011, Deutsche Bahn had a track running on the bridge that had become dilapidated dismantled. The company continues to be responsible for road safety for the bridge structure.
- Today's bridge structure
Bridge abutment on the south side with a passage
Central bridge pillar with an inscription for reconstruction from 1949
The north side of the bridge with the B 80
View of the bridge from the train station to the north to Questenberg with only one track
Bridge abutment on the north side with the truss bridge installed in 1949
literature
- Karl Brethauer : Werra railway bridge . In: Münden. Collected Essays. First episode. Publisher Hans Fiedler, Hann. Münden 1984, p. 70.
- Burkhard Wollenweber: Historical bridge constructions - technical structures of the railway in Lower Saxony. A contribution to the history of bridge building in the 19th century in workbooks for the preservation of monuments in Lower Saxony 33 , Hameln, 2006, p. 190
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Werrabrücke model kit (1856 - 1945) in Hann. Münden on vampisol.de
- ↑ Construction work on the old railway bridge in hna.de from September 2, 2011
Coordinates: 51 ° 25 ′ 2.5 " N , 9 ° 39 ′ 57.7" E