Since mid-November it’s free travel over the new bridge Hengstey on motorway A1. In the night from 17 to 18 November, the lanes in direction Cologne have been opened for traffic. On the other lanes in direction Bremen, traffic has already been rolling since April this year. The opening of the other three lanes marks the final completion of the replacement bridge within the scheduled time frame. SSF branches Halle and Dusseldorf were responsible for construction supervision, supervision of railway construction and surveying.
The bridge is located between junctions Hagen-West and Hagen-Nord in North Rhine-Westphalia. It is 88 metres long and crosses eight railway tracks as well as two town roads. The old bridge built in 1960 comprised two lanes in each direction which were each expanded by one more lane in 1985. The bridge in need of renovation was demolished in 2020 and construction of the new structure began.
The new bridge is a three-span structure by steel composite construction. The existing substructures of the old bridge didn’t show significant defects and could be maintained. A composite construction with VFT® girders was chosen. The girders, which are up to 35 metres long and weigh around 50 tonnes, were placed in the summer of 2021. Subsequently, the in-situ concrete of the superstructure was cast.A particular challenge of the project was the exact planning of railway closures on the tracks underneath the bridge – in total 80 closures were required to demolish the old structure and built the new bridge.
