Railway bridge in Pilchowice, Railway bridge in Strzyżowiec, Poland
The railway bridge in Pilchowice is a riveted steel truss with a flat deck and crisscrossing railing bars. Its main span is a 135 m parabolic lattice, and the total length is 151.68 m with a width of 4 m. The span rests on a massive rectangular stone pier of dark, weathered blocks with pale streaks; the bridge stands about 40 m above the reservoir bed.
The structure was built between 1905 and 1906 and initially crossed a dry valley. After the dam opened in 1912, the landscape flooded and the bridge now stood above the new body of water.
The bridge appears in the films Skąpani w ogniu (1963) and Kocham kino (1987), and in the video game The Vanishing of Ethan Carter. In 2020 it became the centre of a public dispute when plans for Mission: Impossible 7 included blowing it up; protests by heritage bodies led to a procedure to enter it in the national register of monuments.
The bridge is closed to regular rail traffic since late 2016, so it is viewed from outside rather than crossed. The deck stands about 40 m above the reservoir; the nearest stop is Pilchowice Zapora. The wooden surface was the only part needing replacement, so the steel structure itself is in good condition.
In 2020 the bridge became known beyond Poland when plans surfaced to blow it up for Mission: Impossible 7, with a replacement span to be built afterwards. The director Christopher McQuarrie argued the bridge was in poor condition and not even original; protests by heritage bodies followed, and the bridge was entered into the voivodeship monument register.
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