Cathedral Bridge

Cathedral Bridge Dombrücke
Cathedral Bridge, c. 1900
Coordinates	50°56′29″N 6°57′58″E / 50.941353°N 6.966062°E / 50.941353; 6.966062
Carries	Two railway tracks, one two-way lane road[1]
Crosses	River Rhine
Locale	Cologne, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany[1]
Owner	Cologne-Minden Railway Company[1]
Followed by	Hohenzollernbrücke
Characteristics
Design	Lattice truss bridge[1]
Material	Wrought iron (truss)[1]
Width	16.73 metres (54.9 ft)[1] Railway deck: 8.16 metres (26.8 ft) Road deck: 8.47 metres (27.8 ft)
Longest span	103.2 metres (339 ft)[1]
No. of spans	2 × 19.85 metres (65.1 ft) 4 × 103.2 metres (339 ft)[1]
History
Architect	Johann Heinrich Strack[1]
Designer	Friedrich Wilhelm Wallbaum[1]
Engineering design by	Hermann Lohse
Construction start	1855[1]
Construction end	1859[1]
Construction cost	4 million Thalers (estimate)
Inaugurated	3 October 1859
Closed	1909[1]
Location

The Cathedral Bridge (German: Dombrücke, pronounced [ˈdoːmˌbʁʏkə]) 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 axis. It was built in combination with the original Central Station (German: Zentralbahnhof [tsɛnˈtʁaːlˌbaːnhoːf]) and a new ground-level railway track through the northern Old Town of the Cologne Innenstadt. As the Cathedral Bridge could not support the increased traffic of the new Köln Hauptbahnhof in 1894, it was replaced by the Hohenzollern Bridge in 1911.

The Cathedral Bridge was the second railway bridge to be built over the river Rhine, after the significantly shorter Waldshut–Koblenz Rhine Bridge with spans of up to 52 metres (171 ft), which was opened just a few months prior on 18 August 1859.