Unstruttalbrücke, Railway bridge in Karsdorf, Germany

The Unstruttalbrücke is a railway bridge made of prestressed concrete that spans 2,668 meters across the Unstrut Valley. Its structure consists of four large frame sections and bridges a height of 49 meters.

Planning began in mid-1993 with a roughly 3 km, up to 70 m high structure; the 1996 plan approval fixed the route, and the design was revised in 2006. Excavations between 1994 and November 2007 uncovered about 300 finds, including eleven Corded Ware crouched burials from around 2000 BC. Piling started in November 2007; the shell was completed in July 2012 and track laying followed in 2013.

The bridge crosses the Unstrut, the Dissau, two state roads and the Unstrutbahn heritage railway. During the 2010 arch construction over the river, the Unstrut was closed to shipping and portage points were set up for canoeists. Archaeological digs from 1994 to 2007 uncovered eleven Corded Ware crouched burials, about 2000 BC.

The bridge crosses the Unstrut valley between the Bibratunnel to the west and the Osterbergtunnel to the east; the Unstrut itself was closed to shipping in 2010 while the arch over it was built, with portage points set up for canoeists. The structure is best seen from the valley floor and the surrounding slopes, where the row of piers and the two low arches at the ends are visible.

The four 580-metre frame bridges are joint- and bearing-free, a form used here for the first time on a prestressed-concrete railway bridge in Germany. The deck rests on a hollow box girder 4.75 m deep and 13.95 m wide, carried by 46 spans of 58 m each.