The Ravenna Bridge is a high and long railway

viaduct A viaduct is a specific type of bridge that consists of a series of arches, piers or columns supporting a long elevated railway or road. Typically a viaduct connects two points of roughly equal elevation, allowing direct overpass across a wide v ...

on the Höllental Railway line in the

Black Forest The Black Forest (german: Schwarzwald ) is a large forested mountain range in the state of Baden-Württemberg in southwest Germany, bounded by the Rhine Valley to the west and south and close to the borders with France and Switzerland. It is t ...

, in

Breitnau Breitnau is a municipality in the district of Breisgau-Hochschwarzwald in Baden-Württemberg in southern Germany, about 30 kilometres from the city of Freiburg im Breisgau. It is located within the High Black Forest. Geography The municipalit ...

Breisgau-Hochschwarzwald Breisgau-Hochschwarzwald (french: Arrondissement de Brisgau-Haute-Forêt-Noire) is a (district) in the southwest of Baden-Württemberg, Germany. Fifty towns and municipalities with 133 settlements lie within the district. The district itself belon ...

Baden-Württemberg Baden-Württemberg (; ), commonly shortened to BW or BaWü, is a German state () in Southwest Germany, east of the Rhine, which forms the southern part of Germany's western border with France. With more than 11.07 million inhabitants across a ...

Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...

. The bridge crosses the

Ravenna Gorge The Ravenna Gorge (german: Ravennaschlucht) is a gorge in the Black Forest in southwest Germany. It is a narrow side valley of the Höllental, through which the Ravenna stream flows. A trail also runs through the ravine as part of the Black Fo ...

that ends in the upper Höllental valley, and has a grade of . The origin of the name most likely comes from the French ''ravin'' for gorge.

History and construction

The first structure was completed in 1885 and consisted of a steel cantilever span that rested on three mortared

sandstone Sandstone is a clastic sedimentary rock composed mainly of sand-sized (0.0625 to 2 mm) silicate grains. Sandstones comprise about 20–25% of all sedimentary rocks. Most sandstone is composed of quartz or feldspar (both silicates) ...

block pillars. The bridge had a slight curve, and trains were limited to a speed of and an axle load of . Heavier locomotives and faster speeds led to the construction in 1926–27 of the current structure, a mortared stone viaduct with nine arches and an arch span of , which also had the effect of straightening the railway line. The old bridge was then demolished, although the old

abutment An abutment is the substructure at the ends of a bridge span or dam supporting its superstructure. Single-span bridges have abutments at each end which provide vertical and lateral support for the span, as well as acting as retaining walls ...

s are still visible. The Ravenna Tunnel that follows immediately after the bridge was originally long. It was partially cut open and thus has a length today of only . The bridge was exploded by German forces near the end of the

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

. It was re-built in 1947–48, under the direction of French occupying forces and with the use of German prisoners of war obligated to undertake compulsory labour, so that large quantities of logs from the Black Forest that had to be delivered as war reparations could be transported out.

References

{{Authority control Railway bridges in Germany Stone bridges in Germany Viaducts in Germany Stone arch bridges