Landwasser Viaduct

46.6809059.6760791054Koordinaten: 46 ° 40 ' 51.3 "N, 9 ° 40' 33.9 " E; CH1903: 771161/172405

Land Water

The Landwasserviadukt is a 65 m high and 136 m [Note 1] long railway bridge in the network of the Rhaetian Railway in the vicinity of the station Filisur and is considered a landmark of the railway company. Around 22,000 trains per year cross the viaduct, there are around 60 daily The viaduct is part since July 7, 2008, a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Location

Built of dark limestone bridge is located on the route of Tiefencastel Filisur in the Swiss canton of Graubünden in train km 63.070 and is an architectural monument of the Albula Railway. The bridge is on the municipality of Filisur and Schmitten.

The Landwasserviadukt can be seen on the drive from Alvaneu ago by far. First, the Schmittener -Tobel Viaduct is traversed, which also has a considerable size. In the bend of the bridge you can watch the running of the train in the country underwater tunnel. The railway line from Davos to Filisur united shortly before the station with the depth of Castel- line and gives the traveler the view from the northeast to the building.

From the street Alvaneu - Filisur branches at the bridge over the water from a country walk, through which you can reach in ten minutes up to the foundation of the viaduct.

Description

The railway line, in the region of the viaduct on a slope of 20 per thousand and in plan a circular arc with a radius of 100 m. The country water is bridged with six 20 m wide span vaults resting on five high piers. The south-eastern abutment of the bridge is located in a high cliff, and the tracks lead directly into the 216 -meter long underwater tunnel country. The masonry includes approximately 9200 cubic meters and is grouted with Kalkdolomit.

Construction

The construction of the bridge took over in March 1901, the company Müller & Zeerleder, engineer was Alexander Acatos. In October of the following year, the first trains could sail the building. During the construction of a light railway track was moved to the site from about 800 meters away Albula road and about 500 m downstream limestone quarry. In the vicinity of the quarry a workshop was for this field train. The special feature was that the three main pillars were reinforced for cost reasons and because of the risk of flooding the country water without scaffolding; it was very unusual at that time. To get along without scaffolding, inside an iron support tower was erected in each tower, which was walled. At this iron construction one crane bridge is mounted. With increasing height of the iron tower was extended upwards and the crane bridge pulled further upwards. With an electric winch on the crane bridge then the material could be hoisted up. The cost was at that time 280,000 Swiss francs.

Rehabilitation

After 106 years, a repair was required in 2009. In the summer of 2009, the entire viaduct was renovated during operation. The costs amounted to 4.6 million Swiss francs. For the duration of the refurbishment, the entire viaduct including all piers was provided with a scaffold. The renovation was carried out so that the viewer, apart from a whitening on the building, no change can be seen. This was also necessary because the Landwasserviadukt is included in the list of UNESCO's World Heritage List since July 2008 and therefore no changes to the landscape are allowed. All the joints of the masonry were reinforced by injections from the outside, the walls even after 100 years of operation is still in pristine condition. Furthermore, a new track substructure of concrete, and new rails have been installed on the bridge. The concrete trough was laterally faced with granite masonry, so that the concrete can not be seen from the side as you face the viaduct. Despite the time-consuming work, which lasted several months and took place in shifts day and night, all the trains could operate scheduled routes. About a quarter of the work did not allow trains, they were done at night. Thus, the bridge was open to traffic during the hardening of fresh concrete sections, these were each spanned by temporary bridges. In the construction area, the drivers had to reduce the speed to 10 km / hr.

For the renovation of approximately 24,000 man hours, it took eight months. Construction began March 9. First, the scaffolding, which took claim because of the volume was made several weeks.

Varia

As a smaller version of the land water viaduct applies the Castielertobel viaduct of the railway Chur- Arosa, which also leads directly into a tunnel in similarly spectacular surroundings.

Panorama car of the Glacier Express at the entrance to the land water tunnel

During the renovation, summer 2009