Eglisau railway bridge

The Eglisau railway bridge, or Eisenbahnbrücke Eglisau, is a single-track railway bridge which carries the Eglisau to Neuhausen line across the Rhine in Switzerland. Both ends of the bridge lie within the municipality of Eglisau and the canton of Zurich.

Technical Details[edit]

The bridge was built between the years of 1895 and 1897 by the Swiss Northeastern Railway at a cost of 980,000 Swiss francs.

The bridge has a total length of 439 metres (1,440 ft) and has a height of 50 metres (160 ft) above river level. The principal span comprises a 90 metres (300 ft) long and 9 metres (30 ft) high iron truss bridge.^[1] Several natural stone masonry approaches with piers up to 50m in height lead to the bridge from the north and south of the steel truss. The original carriageway, consisting of a ballasted track on Zores iron profiles, was replaced by a steel trough with ballast in 1982/1983. Several joints of the truss girder were also strengthened using post-tensioned bolts, and the steel elements were entirely repainted for corrosion protection.

An engineering study in 2013 confirmed an additional service duration of at least 50 years for the bridge.^[2]

References[edit]

^ "Rheinbrücke Eglisau" (in German). www.brueckenweb.de. Retrieved 2012-01-24.
^ BRÜHWILER, Eugen; et al. (2013). "Fatigue safety examination of a riveted railway bridge using data from long term monitoring" (PDF). IABSE Symposium Report. 99 (25). International Association for Bridge and Structural Engineering: 184–185. Retrieved 17 December 2013.

Bibliography[edit]

Stadelmann, W (1989). "Rheinbrücken des 19. Jahrhunderts aus Eisen" [Rhine iron bridges of the 19th Century]. Schweiz.Ing.u.Architekt. ISSN 0251-0960.