Cathedral Bridge

50.9413888888896.9661111111111Koordinaten: 50 ° 56 ' 29 " N, 6 ° 57' 58" E

F1

Deutz- Gießen Railway

Rhine

Replaced by the Hohenzollern Bridge

The Tumski Bridge was a railway and road bridge over the Rhine in Cologne and the direct predecessor of the Hohenzollern Bridge. It was built in 1855 and opened in early October 1859 on the Maximinenstraße road together with the first Cologne " Central Station ". Simultaneously, a new ground-level railway track was laid through the old town.

When the new Central Station 1894 Tumski Bridge was no longer enough traffic and the growing operation was replaced by the Hohenzollern Bridge opened in 1911 after fifty years.

Location

The Tumski Bridge stood at Rhine kilometer 688.5 in the longitudinal axis of the Cologne Cathedral. The location of the southern bridge part of today's Hohenzollern Bridge is roughly equivalent to that of the railway bridge part of the Tumski Bridge.

Importance

The bridge was the second railway bridge across the Rhine to the significantly shorter in Waldshut, which had been a few months earlier, on August 18, 1859 opened. The Tumski Bridge was also "Fixed Bridge " because it was "fixed" Rhine crossing between Basel and the Netherlands after the Roman bridge from the 4th century the first. Previously, it had in the Middle Ages a "flying bridge " / greed Ponte, a shuttle ferry, and, in Prussian times a pontoon bridge.

Construction

Until the construction of Tumski Bridge the various right - and left-bank railway lines ended up on the opposite banks of the Rhine without a direct connection. Passengers and goods had to the Rhine on a pontoon bridge or cross by ferry.

In particular, the Cologne -Minden Railway Company urged to a bridge and was finally building owner of the bridge. The city had because of the increasing traffic with the right bank of the Rhine interest in a road bridge and contributed to the costs. The Council of the City of Cologne in 1847 turned to King Frederick William IV of the Prussian Oberbaurat Karl Lentze commissioned through the Ministry of Trade, Commerce and Public Works with the planning. He conceived a double bridge, a road bridge ( south, upstream ) and a double-track railway bridge ( north, downstream ). The road tour ended on the western side with a straight ramp northeast of Cologne Cathedral.

With the earthworks was on June 6, 1855 began laying the foundation stone took place on October 3, 1855, was inaugurated the bridge on October 3, 1859. The designed by the Berlin court architect Heinrich Strack bridge portals to have been completed, however, until after the official start. They were built in gray sandstone Udelfanger.

Technical Parameters

The bridge spanning the Rhine with four openings, each of which was 99 feet wide. The width of the bridge was 16.73 m (including 8.16 m for double-track railway operation, 8.47 m for road bridge). The iron construction came from hydraulic inspector Hermann Lohse. It consisted of a total of eight trusses ( two side by side and four in a row), passed their pages from a dense network of diagonal bars. Because the bridge so that resembled a cage and also could be closed with heavy iron gates, it was popularly known as " mousetrap ": appointed ( dialect " Muusfall "). The construction costs were estimated forty years later to almost 12 million marks, so probably 1859 when almost 4 million ( Prussian ) thalers have located.