Sluice Miřejovice, Lock and bridge complex in Veltrusy and Nelahozeves, Czech Republic.
The Sluice Miřejovice is a weir bridge over the Vltava at river kilometre 18.0, linking Nelahozeves on the left bank with Veltrusy on the right. Its 288-metre steel truss bridge, 7 metres wide, rests on eight spans and five pillars topped by small towers housing the mechanisms that raise the five cylindrical weir gates.
A wooden bridge built by the Chotkové family in 1755 stood here until the flood of 1784; its remains show at low water, and Joseph II then allowed only a ferry. The weir itself was built in 1900–1903, and in 1928–1930 it gained the powerhouse canal and plant. Road traffic left the bridge in 1974.
The weir's whitewater channel on the right bank has served as a slalom course, used briefly in the 1960s and fully from 1984; its roughly 0.6 km canal is paddled over the first 400 m. The ornamental towers atop the five pillars, 3.5 m wide and 5 to 10 m tall, set Miřejovice apart from plainer Vltava weirs.
The bridge now carries only pedestrians and cyclists, including long-distance cycle route No. 2, since road traffic was moved to a new bridge about half a kilometre downstream in 1974. The former road bridge is 288 metres long and 7 metres wide, with five tower-like pillars housing the gate-lifting mechanisms. The shipping lock has two chambers in sequence, 73 and 133.4 metres long.
The bridge features narrow-gauge railway tracks that were used to control the sluice gates mechanically. These tracks remain visible and represent an ingenious engineering solution from the early 1900s.
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