Versamer Tobelbrücken, Steel bridge in Grisons, Switzerland.
The Versamer Tobelbrücken are two bridges over the Rabiusa in the Versamertobel gorge. The old bridge is a 70-metre three-hinged arch iron bridge built in 1897 on scaffolding by Richard Coray. The newer bridge, completed in 2012, is a 112-metre-long, 8.8-metre-wide steel-concrete Sprengwerk located slightly upstream.
The original wooden bridge built in 1828 collapsed due to design flaws and was replaced by this steel structure in 1897. The new bridge followed an innovative design and represented the shift toward modern engineering techniques in bridging Alpine gorges.
Locals call the structure Versamerbrücke or Versamer Brücke, after the village of Versam and the Versamertobel gorge it spans. Since 2012 the 1897 iron bridge has carried only slow traffic, kept as a witness to 19th-century steel bridge building. Its 70-metre three-hinged arch was erected on scaffolding by Richard Coray, the Graubünden master carpenter who built falsework for many Swiss bridges.
The old 1897 iron bridge is kept for slow traffic, while the 2012 road bridge stands slightly further upstream, not alongside it. The two are a short walk apart on the Versamerstrasse northeast of Versam, at the entrance to the Safiental. Trucks no longer face the former 13-tonne limit on the Bonaduz–Versam route.
The bridge uses a three-hinged arch principle where weight distributes through specialized joints at three points across the gorge. This system was an advanced solution at the time for spanning difficult terrain.
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