As a Christmas present, Oberschleißheim’s motorists will receive the early opening of the railway bridge on Mittenheimer Straße, which has been closed since April 2021, from the municipality. The only unrestricted crossing of the railway line will open to traffic on Wednesday, December 21 – eight months earlier than expected. The town hall is donating a drink with mulled wine and grilled food on Tuesday, December 20th at 5 p.m. at the foot of the bridge by the train station.
The railway bridge, built in 1971, had to be completely renovated after severe wear and tear damage to the concrete structure. The start of construction had been postponed until April 2021 due to the corona pandemic and imponderables, and the construction period was calculated until August 2023. The fact that things went so much faster now was mainly due to the past mild winter. Instead of the calculated construction stoppage of several weeks, the construction workers only had Christmas holidays, otherwise they could work through. The cost is given by the town hall at 3.5 million euros.
The bridge remains open for trucks, but the speed limit is 30
During the construction work, the entire bridge covering was removed, the concrete of the girder parts was renovated and the joint material was replaced. The drainage structure was completely renewed, new drains and pipes were laid. This was followed by the roadway and new railings. The railway line had to be closed, particularly during work on the underside of the bridge.
The bridge was built 51 years ago because the Oberschleißheim station was relocated with the expansion of the Munich S-Bahn network. The historic railway station from 1858 was shut down, and a new station was built for the S-Bahn, which was much more central for the town that had grown to the north-west. An old level crossing had to make way for the station, which was compensated for by the monstrous bridge structure in the brutal 1970s style.
Because apart from the bridge there are only two level crossings with barriers in the east-west direction, the closure was a massive intervention in Oberschleißheim’s transport network. The bus timetables had to be changed and the construction site setup in the parking lots under the bridge meant that a lot of park-and-ride traffic diverted to the nearby Civic Center parking lot. Mayor Markus Böck (CSU) is “very happy that we finished so much earlier”.
With the release of the bridge, traffic will resume rolling as before. Thought games to limit the tonnage in order to block traffic were not implemented. Traffic on the bridge and on Mittenheimer Straße to the south is only limited to 30 km/h.