Half-time at the Saale-Elster viaduct, DE | 2006

The Milestone in Germany's Railway Infrastructure

As part of the construction of the Erfurt-Leipzig/Halle railway line, the longest railway bridge in Germany was built from 2006 to 2012, located south of Halle. 

Upon its completion, the bridge secured the transportation flows from Nuremberg to Berlin and from Frankfurt/M. to Dresden. The main bridge spans 6,456 meters across the Saale-Elster valley from east to west, with a branch towards Halle to the north spanning 2,112 meters at the center of the structure. 

According to the plans of DB AG, the supporting structure is made of single-cell box girders made of prestressed concrete, and the superstructure system mainly consists of single-span girders with a 44-meter pillar distance. 

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Due to the location of the structure in the Saale-Elster valley, a region of great importance with a wide variety of species, numerous measures were taken to minimize disruptions to the landscape and habitat, including: 

  • Reorganization of the drinking water protection zones so that the construction lies outside of zones I and II,
  • Sealing of construction roads in zone III,
  • Construction of closed rainwater retention basins with light liquid separators and buoyancy protection to ensure safety in the event of Aue overflow,
  • Ahead-of-time construction of the bridge in ecologically sensitive areas.

Ecological aspects were also considered during the construction of the 242 pillars that support the bridge structure: 

  • All pillars are shallowly grounded within sheet pile boxes equipped with lock seals. 
  • The sheet piles are structurally bound to the storage layers of the adjacent sandstone or tertiary sediments, ensuring separation of the structure from the groundwater. 
  • The sheet piles remain in the ground and are permanently protected against corrosion by an internal coating. 
  • A force-locking connection is made between the foundation and the sheet pile, ensuring load transfer over the sheet pile box and reducing settlements. 

For the foundation of the pillars, Z-profiles of the profile groups AZ 18 and AZ 26 were used for technical and constructive reasons, as well as for corrosion protection.