Strasbourg-Kehl Railroad Bridge

The first railway bridge at Kehl across the Rhine was opened in May 1861. Since then the bridge has been partially or fully destroyed more than once.

The Kehl railway bridge constructed in 1956, was a single track railway bridge between Strasbourg and Kehl, crossing in the process both the Rhine and the frontier between Germany and France.

A replacement double track railway bridge was first used on 10 October 2010 and formally opened in December 2010 in order to permit trains to cross the river more rapidly. The speed limit on the new bridge is 160 km/h (100 mph).

Replacing the 1861 bridge: the 1956 bridge

In July 1945 U.S. engineering troops constructed a military kit based provisional single-track bridge.

On 30 January 1953 an agreement was signed between France and Germany concerning permanent bridges and transit over the Rhine on the Franco-German frontier (Abkommen über die festen Brücken und Fähren über den Rhein an der deutsch-französischen Grenze). This included provision for new railway bridges connecting Kehl and Strasbourg. Two separate single-track bridges were envisaged, one for each direction of travel, but a second bridge of this nature was never actually built.

Work began on the first single track rail bridge in May 1954. This is a triple span post-free trellis frame steel bridge supported by a continuous beam. The bridge was opened on 12 August 1956. The frontier was set at the midpoint of the bridge: Germany owns the eastern half and France owns the western half.

Text imported from Wikipedia article "Rhine Bridge, Kehl" and modified on July 23, 2019 according to the CC-BY-SA 4.0 International license.