Ingenieurbüro Dr. Binnewies

Hamburg’s Hauptbahnhof, its central railway station, is the transport hub of northern Germany. Here, not only the main long-distance rail routes come together, but it is also the intersection for all of the inner city’s other traffic flows. At the heart of the Central Station are its rail bridges, which had to be renovated after over 100 years of operation. Here, three modes of transport share a common interface: the tracks of the underground (U-Bahn) U3 line run beneath the rail bridges, the main line tracks run on them, and above the railway is the road traffic carried on the four-lane Steintor Bridge. The challenge was to replace the rail bridges without restricting traffic. To do this, the new construction was optimised in such a way that it the bridges could be changed in just two 48-hour periods of full possession. All the work of renovating and strengthening the abutments and creating a new central support was carried out between these two possession periods during normal traffic. The rail platforms remained fully functional during this time, so that passengers scarcely noticed the work of making the rail bridges fit and ready for the next 100 years...

Client
DB Station & Service