Friesenbrücke bridge

From August 2021 through May 2022, under contract from DB InfraGO AG, DEPENBROCK Ingenieurwasserbau performed major demolition and removal operations on the old Friesenbrücke bridge, which had been partially destroyed when accidentally rammed by a cargo ship. The project was carried out in close collaboration with DEPENBROCK Tiefbau. Normal shipping continued throughout all work operations.

The new Friesenbrücke bridge, which is being built as by a consortium, will become Europe’s largest lift-and-turn railway bridge. The movable bridge section, which is 145 m long in total, will have a rotating pier on the Ihrhove side to keep the navigation channel clear. The new superstructures are supported by shallow piers in the water and deep piers on land. The hydraulic engineering services included the delivery and installation of 4,500 tons of steel as foundation elements for excavation pits and guide structures as well as pile driving, drilling and dredging work. The civil engineering department was responsible for loosening, loading and disposing of 64,000 m3 of soil as well as general civil engineering services, always taking into account the requirements for working in different types of biotope.

The successful cooperation with DB InfraGO AG led to two further major orders for the DEPENBROCK Group in 2023, with which a section of the cross-border Wunderline railway line will be modernised. This was followed in July by the contract to renew the 5.6-km-long railroad line running eastward from the Friesenbrücke bridge to Ihrhove station. This work will be carried out together with the track construction partner and in collaboration with the specialists from DEPENBROCK subsidiary Wilhelm Becker for the civil engineering. Finally, at the end of September 2023, the contract to renew the western rail link from the Friesenbrücke bridge to the German-Dutch border was also awarded to DEPENBROCK and its track construction partner, again with the involvement of Wilhelm Becker’s specialists. One challenge in the construction of the approximately 11.4-km-long railway line is the schedule: most of the construction project must be completed by 2024.

Following the completion of the Friesenbrücke bridge and the renewal of the railway lines, trains are once again running on the Wunderline, a 173-km-long route between Groningen and Bremen. It connects Germany and the Netherlands, the metropolitan regions of Northwest and Groningen-Assen as well as numerous towns and municipalities. The Wunderline is also an important link in the pan-European rail network from Amsterdam to Hamburg and Scandinavia.

The dynamics of the activities for the Friesenbrücke and the Wunderline show that the client greatly appreciates the synergy effects of high competence on the one hand and the capacity to offer everything from a single source on the other.