The Südbrücke, Mainz ("South bridge") is a

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

on the

Main Railway The Main Railway (German: ''Mainbahn'', pronounced 'mine barn') is a 37.5 km-long double-track electrified railway line, which runs on the south side of the river Main from Mainz to Frankfurt central station. History Immediately after the ope ...

that connects

Mainz Mainz (; #Names and etymology, see below) is the capital and largest city of the German state of Rhineland-Palatinate, and with around 223,000 inhabitants, it is List of cities in Germany by population, Germany's 35th-largest city. It lies in ...

Rhineland-Palatinate Rhineland-Palatinate ( , ; ; ; ) is a western state of Germany. It covers and has about 4.05 million residents. It is the ninth largest and sixth most populous of the sixteen states. Mainz is the capital and largest city. Other cities are ...

, across the

Rhine The Rhine ( ) is one of the List of rivers of Europe, major rivers in Europe. The river begins in the Swiss canton of Graubünden in the southeastern Swiss Alps. It forms part of the Swiss-Liechtenstein border, then part of the Austria–Swit ...

with Gustavsburg in

Hesse Hesse or Hessen ( ), officially the State of Hesse (), is a States of Germany, state in Germany. Its capital city is Wiesbaden, and the largest urban area is Frankfurt, which is also the country's principal financial centre. Two other major hist ...

. It is one of the early railway bridges in

Germany Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It lies between the Baltic Sea and the North Sea to the north and the Alps to the south. Its sixteen States of Germany, constituent states have a total popu ...

History

Paulisystembridge (1862)

In the period between 1853 and 1859 railways were built by the

Hessian Ludwig Railway The Hessian Ludwig Railway (German: ''Hessische Ludwigsbahn'') or HLB with its network of 697 kilometres of railway was one of the largest privately owned railway companies in Germany. Early history The Hessian Ludwig Railway was a product of ...

on the left and right bank of the Rhine. Initially they were connected across the Rhine. As a result, a

train ferry A train ferry is a ship (ferry) designed to carry Railroad car, railway vehicles, as well as their cargoes and passengers. Typically, one level of the ship is fitted with Track (rail transport), railway tracks, and the vessel has a door at the f ...

was established between Mainz and Gustavsburg, using two pontoons towed by

paddle steamer A paddle steamer is a steamship or steamboat powered by a steam engine driving paddle wheels to propel the craft through the water. In antiquity, paddle wheelers followed the development of poles, oars and sails, whereby the first uses were wh ...

to carry wagons across the Rhine. Passengers could use the steamer as a ferry from 1 August 1858. In between 1860 and 1862, the south bridge was designed by the engineering works and iron foundry ''Maschinenfabrik und Eisengießerei J. F. Klett'' (later Maschinenfabrik Augsburg-Nürnberg - MAN) originating from

Nuremberg Nuremberg (, ; ; in the local East Franconian dialect: ''Nämberch'' ) is the Franconia#Towns and cities, largest city in Franconia, the List of cities in Bavaria by population, second-largest city in the States of Germany, German state of Bav ...

. Since the Roman bridge (Pons Ingeniosa) first built c. 30 AD and the

Carolingian The Carolingian dynasty ( ; known variously as the Carlovingians, Carolingus, Carolings, Karolinger or Karlings) was a Frankish noble family named after Charles Martel and his grandson Charlemagne, descendants of the Arnulfing and Pippinid c ...

Rhine bridge of Charlemagne,

Regesta Imperii Papal regesta are the copies, generally entered in special registry volumes, of the papal letters and official documents that are kept in the papal archives. The name is also used to indicate subsequent publications containing such documents, in c ...

RI I n. 477a: „The bridge erected near Mainz by order of Charlemagne is destroyed by fire; the plan to erect a stone bridge instead of a timber bridge was not accomplished. Ann. r. Franc. (Einh.), V. Karoli c. 17, 32 vgl. Poeta Saxo V, 457, Mon. Sangall. I, 30, Simson Karl d. Gr. 2,510.“; it had been the first permanent bridge across the Rhine at Mainz, which until then had only a

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

. It was after the

Waldshut–Koblenz Rhine Bridge The Waldshut–Koblenz Rhine Bridge is a single-track railway bridge on the Turgi–Koblenz–Waldshut railway, between Waldshut and Koblenz AG, crossing the Rhine and the border between Germany and Switzerland. It was the first railway bridge ...

on the Upper Rhine, the

cathedral Bridge The Cathedral Bridge (, ) 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 ...

in Cologne and the Kehl bridge the fourth railway bridge over the Rhine.

Design

The bridge was built according to the plans of Heinrich Gerber, the Head of Bridge Division of Maschinenfabrik Klett. The

puddled iron Puddling is the process of converting pig iron to bar (wrought) iron in a coal fired reverberatory furnace. It was developed in England during the 1780s. The molten pig iron was stirred in a reverberatory furnace, in an oxidizing environment t ...

(

wrought iron Wrought iron is an iron alloy with a very low carbon content (less than 0.05%) in contrast to that of cast iron (2.1% to 4.5%), or 0.25 for low carbon "mild" steel. Wrought iron is manufactured by heating and melting high carbon cast iron in an ...

) structure bridge had four bridge segments. The Pauli truss structure was arranged above the roadway, according to the Pauli lenticular

truss bridge A truss bridge is a bridge whose load-bearing superstructure is composed of a truss, a structure of connected elements, usually forming triangular units. The connected elements, typically straight, may be stressed from tension, compression, or ...

recently developed by Friedrich August von Pauli. Right of Rhine joined a long flood bridge with 28 other fields. At both bridgeheads were they equipped with scheduled by district architect Ignaz victims man Gothic gates and bridge towers, which were to serve in time of war to defend the bridge.

History

Paulisystembridge (1862)

Design

Sources

References

Further reading