Cathedral Bridge

Cathedral Bridge

Dombrücke
Cathedral Bridge, c. 1900
Cathedral Bridge, c. 1900
Coordinates50°56′29″N 6°57′58″E / 50.941353°N 6.966062°E / 50.941353; 6.966062
CarriesTwo railway tracks, one two-way lane road[1]
CrossesRiver Rhine
LocaleCologne, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany[1]
OwnerCologne-Minden Railway Company[1]
Followed byHohenzollernbrücke
Characteristics
DesignLattice truss bridge[1]
MaterialWrought iron (truss)[1]
Width16.73 metres (54.9 ft)[1]
Railway deck: 8.16 metres (26.8 ft)
Road deck: 8.47 metres (27.8 ft)
Longest span103.2 metres (339 ft)[1]
No. of spans2 × 19.85 metres (65.1 ft)
4 × 103.2 metres (339 ft)[1]
History
ArchitectJohann Heinrich Strack[1]
DesignerFriedrich Wilhelm Wallbaum[1]
Engineering design byHermann Lohse
Construction start1855[1]
Construction end1859[1]
Construction cost4 million Thalers (estimate)
Inaugurated3 October 1859
Closed1909[1]
Location
Map
Cathedral Bridge with a locomotive of the Cologne-Minden Railway Company, c. 1867

The Cathedral Bridge (German: Dombrücke, pronounced [ˈdoːmˌbʁʏkə]) was a railway and street bridge crossing the river Rhine in the German city of Cologne. It was owned by the Cologne-Minden Railway Company and named after the Cologne Cathedral, which is located on the same longitudinal axis. It was built in combination with the original Central Station (German: Zentralbahnhof [tsɛnˈtʁaːlˌbaːnhoːf]) and a new ground-level railway track through the northern Old Town of the Cologne Innenstadt. As the Cathedral Bridge could not support the increased traffic of the new Köln Hauptbahnhof in 1894, it was replaced by the Hohenzollern Bridge in 1911.

The Cathedral Bridge was the second railway bridge to be built over the river Rhine, after the significantly shorter Waldshut–Koblenz Rhine Bridge with spans of up to 52 metres (171 ft), which was opened just a few months prior on 18 August 1859.