The Skansen Bridge ( no, Skansen jernbanebro) is a 52-meter span bascule

railway bridge A bridge is a structure built to span a physical obstacle (such as a body of water, valley, road, or rail) without blocking the way underneath. It is constructed for the purpose of providing passage over the obstacle, which is usually somethi ...

located at

Skansen Skansen (; "the Sconce") is the oldest open-air museum and zoo in Sweden located on the island Djurgården in Stockholm, Sweden. It was opened on 11 October 1891 by Artur Hazelius (1833–1901) to show the way of life in the different parts ...

Trondheim Trondheim ( , , ; sma, Tråante), historically Kaupangen, Nidaros and Trondhjem (), is a city and municipality in Trøndelag county, Norway. As of 2020, it had a population of 205,332, was the third most populous municipality in Norway, an ...

Norway Norway, officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic country in Northern Europe, the mainland territory of which comprises the western and northernmost portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula. The remote Arctic island of Jan Mayen and t ...

History

Shunter hauling train over Skansen Bridge

The bridge was opened on March 22, 1918, allowing trains on the

Dovre Line The Dovre Line ( no, Dovrebanen) is a Norwegian railway line with three slightly different lines which all lead to the historic city of Trondheim. Definition *Dovre Line is the current name of the 548 km main line of the Norwegian railway s ...

access to Trondheim Central Station while also being able to open to allow

ship A ship is a large watercraft that travels the world's oceans and other sufficiently deep waterways, carrying cargo or passengers, or in support of specialized missions, such as defense, research, and fishing. Ships are generally distinguishe ...

s on the Trondheim Canal (''Vestre kanalhavn'') access to the Trondheimsfjord. It was built at the same time the

was rebuilt from

narrow gauge A narrow-gauge railway (narrow-gauge railroad in the US) is a railway with a track gauge narrower than standard . Most narrow-gauge railways are between and . Since narrow-gauge railways are usually built with tighter curves, smaller struc ...

to and the stretch between

Marienborg Marienborg, a mid 18th-century country house perched on a small hilltop on the northern shore of Bagsværd Lake, Lyngby-Taarbæk Municipality, north of downtown Copenhagen, has served as the official residence of Denmark's prime minister sin ...

and Trondheim Central Station was

double track A double-track railway usually involves running one track in each direction, compared to a single-track railway where trains in both directions share the same track. Overview In the earliest days of railways in the United Kingdom, most lin ...

ed. Skansen Bridge was designed by structural engineer Joseph Strauss, who among other things also constructed the

Golden Gate Bridge The Golden Gate Bridge is a suspension bridge spanning the Golden Gate, the strait connecting San Francisco Bay and the Pacific Ocean. The structure links the U.S. city of San Francisco, California—the northern tip of the San Francisco P ...

San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish language, Spanish for "Francis of Assisi, Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the List of Ca ...

. The Strauss designed single-leaf iron truss railway bridge with overhead counterweight provides clearance for boat traffic. This type of bridge has a counterweight suspended in a

parallelogram In Euclidean geometry, a parallelogram is a simple (non- self-intersecting) quadrilateral with two pairs of parallel sides. The opposite or facing sides of a parallelogram are of equal length and the opposite angles of a parallelogram are of eq ...

, as well as motors and gears to lift and lower the end of the bridge. In 2006, Skansen Bridge received

architectural conservation Conservation and restoration of immovable cultural property describes the process through which the material, historical, and design integrity of any immovable cultural property are prolonged through carefully planned interventions. The indivi ...

by the

Norwegian Directorate for Cultural Heritage The Directorate for Cultural Heritage ( no, Riksantikvaren or ''Direktoratet for kulturminneforvaltning'') is a government agency responsible for the management of cultural heritage in Norway. Subordinate to the Norwegian Ministry of the Enviro ...

(''Riksantikvaren'') based upon Skansen Bridge being unique in Norway and only one of a few of its kind left in the world. The conservation includes the entire bridge including construction and technical equipment, the guard cabin and the transformer building. The conservation does not include the

railway track A railway track (British English and UIC terminology) or railroad track (American English), also known as permanent way or simply track, is the structure on a railway or railroad consisting of the rails, fasteners, railroad ties (sleepers ...

, signal equipment or the

overhead wire An overhead line or overhead wire is an electrical cable that is used to transmit electrical energy to electric locomotives, trolleybuses or trams. It is known variously as: * Overhead catenary * Overhead contact system (OCS) * Overhead equipment ...

Gallery

References

External links

Decision to conserve bridge
{{in lang, no Bridges by Joseph Strauss (engineer) Railway bridges in Trøndelag Bridges completed in 1918 1918 establishments in Norway Bascule bridges

History

Gallery

See also

References

Related reading

External links