Langwieser Viaduct, Railway bridge in Langwies, Switzerland.
The Langwieser Viaduct is a reinforced concrete railway bridge in the Plessur Valley in the Swiss canton of Graubünden. It runs about 984 feet (284 m) long and rises roughly 203 feet (62 m) above the valley floor.
The viaduct was built between 1912 and 1914 as the first railway bridge in the world made entirely from reinforced concrete. This showed engineers that the material could handle the demands of large-scale construction in alpine terrain.
The bridge takes its name from the small village of Langwies, which the Chur-Arosa line passes through on its way into the mountains. Passengers crossing it by train get a brief but clear view down into the forested valley below.
The structure is best seen from the hiking trails in the Plessur Valley, where you get a clear view of the full arch from below. Those traveling by train on the Rhaetian Railway between Chur and Arosa cross it directly during the journey.
During construction, workers built large temporary wooden scaffolding to hold the concrete arches in place over the valley, since modern formwork systems did not yet exist. This scaffolding had to be erected and then removed in a mountain setting with very limited access.
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