Talbrücke Schraudenbach, Highway bridge in Werneck, Germany.
Talbrücke Schraudenbach is a 236-metre prestressed concrete motorway bridge on the A7 between the Schweinfurt/Werneck interchange and the Gramschatzer Wald exit. It has two separate superstructures built as two-web T-beams, with spans of 34 metres at the end fields and 42 metres in the inner fields. The bridge crosses the Stängersgraben and the district road SW 12 between Schraudenbach and Zeuzleben.
The 1965 bridge carried four lanes plus two hard shoulders until June 2015, when a 236-metre replacement with spans of 34 and 42 metres was begun. On 15 June 2016 the 20-metre falsework between piers 5 and 6 collapsed under fresh concrete; one worker died and 14 were injured. The new structure opened in stages, with the first superstructure handed to traffic in late November 2017 and completion in December 2019.
The bridge carries the A7 over the Stängersgraben and the district road SW 12 between Schraudenbach and Zeuzleben. Its name comes from the village of Schraudenbach in the Schweinfurt district. The replacement built from 2015 was designed with a six-lane cross-section for a later widening of the A7 between the Schweinfurt/Werneck and Biebelried junctions.
As an active motorway bridge, it is not accessible to pedestrians and should only be observed from passing traffic. The best place to view the structure is from surrounding roads or parked areas beside the motorway.
The 2016 falsework collapse killed a 38-year-old worker and injured 14 others, all employed by a subcontractor of Max Bögl. A report blamed undersized connection elements in a scaffold support. In May 2023 the Landgericht Schweinfurt convicted the checking engineer and his assistant of negligent homicide, handing down suspended sentences of 18 and nine months.
The community of curious travelers
AroundUs brings together thousands of curated places, local tips, and hidden gems, enriched daily by 93,223 contributors worldwide.