Rendsburg Hochbrücke

This rather nondescript postcard was acquired more than 40 years ago at a time when I was looking for cards of bridges. I can even recall where I found it – in a box of cards at the back of an antique shop on Kensington Church Street. The card fails to do justice to the engineering splendour of the subject. Although I found out for myself when I visited last month just how difficult it is to reveal its wonders in a single photograph. Rendsburg is in Schleswig-Holstein on the Nord-Ostsee Kanal (what we would call the Kiel Canal), in territory that was for centuries contested by Denmark and Germany – it was finally incorporated into Prussia in 1866. Arriving on a train from Hamburg, I consulted a map and satisfied myself that a left and left again would soon bring me to the bridge I’d come to see. I couldn’t have been more wrong as I strode into the suburbs – but when I looked left while crossing at traffic lights I observed an extraordinary sight in the distance. The vast superstructure of a cruise ship was inching along, its upper decks towering over a Lidl store, offering a valuable clue to the location of the Canal. My route took me through the working port of Rendsburg via an avenue of warehouses and grain elevators, to the bridge itself.

The reason this bridge is special is that in addition to carrying a busy railway line over the canal at a height that permits ocean-going vessels to pass underneath, it is also a Transporter Bridge enabling a handful of vehicles and pedestrians to traverse in a suspended gondola (Schwebefähre). It was built in just 2 years between 1911 and 1913 to carry the Neumünster to Flensburg railway across the canal. Regrettably, since January 2016 when a myopic navigator allowed his ship to collide with the gondola the transporter function has been inactive. The gondola has been removed and remains in store while its future is debated. Given the very small number of surviving Transporter Bridges, it would be a great loss if it wasn’t restored to use.

Another feature to admire is the engineering solution to the problem of how to route trains to the deck of a bridge that stands 42 metres above the water level. The southern approach involved constructing a 5.5km inclined ramp at a gradient of 1/150. Space on the northern bank was more limited and had to be found by building what has become known as the Rendsburg Loop – a 360 degree circuit (5.5km in length) over the eastern suburbs that crosses over itself before finally returning to ground level on the approach to Rendsburg Bahnhof. It makes for an exhilarating, if occasionally vertigo-inducing, train ride. In a short-lived spirit of optimism I set out on foot to trace the Loop but had to admit defeat as it swooped off into the distance over a hundred gardens before suddenly turning up again in a place that made no sense. I found a place where a public footpath ran underneath, between the towering bridge supports but hopeless confusion soon set in and it was a relief to find the station more or less by accident.

There’s a handily placed waterside bar/restaurant (Brückenterrassen Rendsburg), more or less underneath the bridge where the overhead rumble of passing trains adds to the atmosphere. When a big ship passes the rooms overlooking the canal go dark. They also serve a monumental plate of Bratkartoffeln mit Ei und Schinken. Recommended.

 Note: The well-travelled Bridgehunter has a much more informed description of this bridge on his blog.