- Floating crane delivers first component for new Frisian bridge
It's a moment that many people along the Ems have been eagerly awaiting: A floating crane is delivering the first, approximately 300-ton segment of the new Friesen Bridge to the Kreis Leer.
The crane picked up the bridge segment in the afternoon at the Papenburg harbor and then transported it about eight kilometers downstream to the bridge construction site near Weener, where it arrived in the evening, as a spokesperson for the railway company said. The transport was accompanied by two tugboats.
According to the railway company, a total of four segments of the new Friesen Bridge will be delivered in the coming days. Each segment is 30 meters long and weighs 300 tons and is intended for the so-called two-field bridge, a part of the new bridge.
In the coming months, the installation of the 145-meter long rotating bridge part is also planned. For this, the Ems will have to be temporarily dammed up, according to the railway company.
The rebuilding of the structure, more than eight years after a freighter rammed and destroyed the then-closed lifting bridge, has been eagerly awaited in the region. Since the collision in 2015, the Ems crossing has been interrupted for pedestrians, cyclists, and rail traffic.
The new 335-meter long Friesen Bridge is expected to become the largest lift-and-turn bridge for railway traffic in Europe, according to the railway company. In May, the company announced that the commissioning of the new structure, along with the simultaneous modernization of the railway line in the Landkreis Leer, would be delayed by at least six months, to mid-2025 at the earliest.
Instead of the initially estimated 125 million euros, the railway company now estimates the costs to be more than 200 million euros.
The crane transported the first bridge segment to the construction site near Weiner.During the rebuilding process, the company plans to temporarily dam up the Ems near Weiner.
