Moselbrücke Bullay, Double-decker road-rail bridge in Bullay, Germany
The Moselbrücke Bullay is a 314-metre double-decker bridge over the Moselle between Alf/Zell and Bullay. Its lower deck is a dark steel truss with a brownish tone, carried on four thick stone piers in the water and abutments at each end; a red train with lighter windows runs along it. Above the truss, on the same piers, the upper deck carries a road with metal railings parallel to the railway below.
Built between 1875 and 1878 as part of the Koblenz–Trier Moselle line, the bridge was originally planned for rail only; after surrounding municipalities, the district and entrepreneurs contributed funds, the Prussian government approved a double-deck structure for rail and road. The first bridge, a box-shaped steel lattice of 1,400 tonnes on five river piers, was rebuilt and strengthened in 1928–1929 with a strutted truss of 2,000 tonnes. Destroyed on 10 February 1945 by USAAF P-47D Thunderbolts, it reopened on 24 April 1947 after French military governor Marie-Pierre Kœnig endorsed the reconstruction; Deutsche Bahn renovated it in 1999–2000.
The bridge is listed as a protected Kulturdenkmal under Rhineland-Palatinate's heritage law, entered on the monument lists of both Bullay and Zell (Mosel), whose municipal boundaries meet at the river. Its official name, Doppelstockbrücke, simply means "double-decker bridge", describing the two stacked decks.
The bridge carries the L 199 road on its lower deck and the Moselle railway on the upper deck, so pedestrians and drivers cross below the trains. On the Bullay side the railway runs straight into the Prinzenkopftunnel. The structure is a protected monument of Rhineland-Palatinate, listed for Bullay and standing partly on Zell municipal land.
The bridge is one of only three double-decker bridges of its kind in Germany, alongside the two on the Biggetalbahn. Its 1928–29 rebuild gave the truss a system height of 11 metres and a steel mass of 2,000 tonnes, replacing the original 1,400-tonne box girder structure.
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