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San Michele Bridge
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San Michele Bridge
The San Michele Bridge (Italian: Ponte San Michele), also known as the Paderno Bridge (Italian: Ponte di Paderno), is a multi-level rail and road truss arch bridge across the Adda River in Lombardy, Italy. The bridge connects Paderno d'Adda, Lecco on the west bank with Calusco d'Adda, Bergamo on the east bank.
The cast-iron bridge was designed by Swiss engineer Jules Röthlisberger and completed in 1889. Not weld, the bridge consists of riveted beams held together by over 100,000 nails. The bridge crosses the upper Adda River gorge that divides the western and eastern parts of Lombardy. With a height of 85 m (279 ft) and a span length of 150 m (490 ft), the San Michele Bridge was one of the largest arch bridges in the world at the time of its completion.
The upper deck of the bridge is a traffic controlled single-lane vehicular roadway and the lower deck is a single-track section of the Seregno–Bergamo railway. Today the bridge also serves as a historical tourist attraction demonstrating late 19th-century engineering ingenuity.
The bridge was built between 1887 and 1889 to serve as a railway connection between the banks of the river Adda. After the Unification of Italy, the newborn kingdom began a coordination project within the railway routes managed by many private companies. These routes were mainly local, non-homogeneous regarding means and materials. Often these railroads weren't adequately connected.
Milan saw its first railways in August 1840, when the connection with Monza was opened: the presence of the river Adda, however, divided Milan from the emerging industrial regions that gravitated around Bergamo and Brescia (the latter being of particular strategic value thanks to its military production). Furthermore, along the Adda river were many textile factories and the existing communications routes were becoming increasingly inadequate compared to the needs of industrialization. This scenario brought to the decision of building a railway link between Carnate-Usmate and Ponte San Pietro, so as to efficiently connect the area's productive poles.
The first project was entrusted to the Società per le Strade Ferrate Meridionali (Southern Railways Society), which also was expected to build the railway track: this first project consisted of an iron beamed multi-masted bridge, with a rectilinear structure. This bridge would have had two levels: the upper level for the railway and the lower level for the vehicular roadway. The Società Nazionale Officine di Savigliano (SNOS) was allowed to participate with its own project in March 1886, consisting of 12 technical drawings. The SNOS had already built other iron bridges; among them, the One on Po river in Casale Monferrato, the one on Tanaro river in Asti and also the first road bridge in Trezzo sull'Adda. The competition saw four participating projects in total and the Consiglio Superiore dei Lavori Pubblici (technical body of the homonymous ministry) assigned the task to the SNOS. On 22 January 1887 the commendator Di Lena, General Inspector of Railways, signed the contract with the Piedmontese company represented by General Director Engineer Moreno. The agreed duration of the work was of only eighteen months. Small changes were made to the original project, making the bridge 42 metres longer and bringing it to its current size. The construction of the bridge would cost 1,850,000 italian lire, plus 128,717.50 lire for the preliminary works.
A first service bridge was built with 1,800 cubic metres of pine wood imported from Bavaria. This temporary structure was built in 11 months due to the complexity of the location; during this time the plinths and the foundations of Ponte San Michele were built thanks to the continuous flow of granite and stone that were shipped on barges on the Adda river. 2,515 tons of iron and 110 tons of cast iron were imported from German foundries and further processed in Savigliano to obtain the modules used to build the structure. Said modules were transported to Paderno by train and then brought into position using a funicular powered by a locomotive. SNOS provided the construction site with 470 workers: thanks to the efficiency of the logistics and the organization, the deadline for the completion of the bridge was respected, even though there were some victims among the workers.
In March 1889 the construction was completed; the same year, in May, the first test was carried out in the pouring rain, consisting in the transit of a heavy train at first at a speed of 25 km/h, then at 35 km/h and finally – as reported in the local newspaper L'Eco di Bergamo – at the incredible speed of 45 km/h. The convoy was composed by 3 locomotives of 83 tons each, carrying 30 cars. It was longer than the entire bridge and had a total weight of 850 tons. In this day an urban legend began to spread, stating that the bridge's designer – Röthlisberger – committed suicide before the test, fearing a failure of the bridge. This would have led to the start of a series of suicides from the bridge (Röthlisberger actually didn't commit suicide in 1889 but died of pneumonia in his house in Chaumont-Neuchatel on 25 August 1911).
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San Michele Bridge
The San Michele Bridge (Italian: Ponte San Michele), also known as the Paderno Bridge (Italian: Ponte di Paderno), is a multi-level rail and road truss arch bridge across the Adda River in Lombardy, Italy. The bridge connects Paderno d'Adda, Lecco on the west bank with Calusco d'Adda, Bergamo on the east bank.
The cast-iron bridge was designed by Swiss engineer Jules Röthlisberger and completed in 1889. Not weld, the bridge consists of riveted beams held together by over 100,000 nails. The bridge crosses the upper Adda River gorge that divides the western and eastern parts of Lombardy. With a height of 85 m (279 ft) and a span length of 150 m (490 ft), the San Michele Bridge was one of the largest arch bridges in the world at the time of its completion.
The upper deck of the bridge is a traffic controlled single-lane vehicular roadway and the lower deck is a single-track section of the Seregno–Bergamo railway. Today the bridge also serves as a historical tourist attraction demonstrating late 19th-century engineering ingenuity.
The bridge was built between 1887 and 1889 to serve as a railway connection between the banks of the river Adda. After the Unification of Italy, the newborn kingdom began a coordination project within the railway routes managed by many private companies. These routes were mainly local, non-homogeneous regarding means and materials. Often these railroads weren't adequately connected.
Milan saw its first railways in August 1840, when the connection with Monza was opened: the presence of the river Adda, however, divided Milan from the emerging industrial regions that gravitated around Bergamo and Brescia (the latter being of particular strategic value thanks to its military production). Furthermore, along the Adda river were many textile factories and the existing communications routes were becoming increasingly inadequate compared to the needs of industrialization. This scenario brought to the decision of building a railway link between Carnate-Usmate and Ponte San Pietro, so as to efficiently connect the area's productive poles.
The first project was entrusted to the Società per le Strade Ferrate Meridionali (Southern Railways Society), which also was expected to build the railway track: this first project consisted of an iron beamed multi-masted bridge, with a rectilinear structure. This bridge would have had two levels: the upper level for the railway and the lower level for the vehicular roadway. The Società Nazionale Officine di Savigliano (SNOS) was allowed to participate with its own project in March 1886, consisting of 12 technical drawings. The SNOS had already built other iron bridges; among them, the One on Po river in Casale Monferrato, the one on Tanaro river in Asti and also the first road bridge in Trezzo sull'Adda. The competition saw four participating projects in total and the Consiglio Superiore dei Lavori Pubblici (technical body of the homonymous ministry) assigned the task to the SNOS. On 22 January 1887 the commendator Di Lena, General Inspector of Railways, signed the contract with the Piedmontese company represented by General Director Engineer Moreno. The agreed duration of the work was of only eighteen months. Small changes were made to the original project, making the bridge 42 metres longer and bringing it to its current size. The construction of the bridge would cost 1,850,000 italian lire, plus 128,717.50 lire for the preliminary works.
A first service bridge was built with 1,800 cubic metres of pine wood imported from Bavaria. This temporary structure was built in 11 months due to the complexity of the location; during this time the plinths and the foundations of Ponte San Michele were built thanks to the continuous flow of granite and stone that were shipped on barges on the Adda river. 2,515 tons of iron and 110 tons of cast iron were imported from German foundries and further processed in Savigliano to obtain the modules used to build the structure. Said modules were transported to Paderno by train and then brought into position using a funicular powered by a locomotive. SNOS provided the construction site with 470 workers: thanks to the efficiency of the logistics and the organization, the deadline for the completion of the bridge was respected, even though there were some victims among the workers.
In March 1889 the construction was completed; the same year, in May, the first test was carried out in the pouring rain, consisting in the transit of a heavy train at first at a speed of 25 km/h, then at 35 km/h and finally – as reported in the local newspaper L'Eco di Bergamo – at the incredible speed of 45 km/h. The convoy was composed by 3 locomotives of 83 tons each, carrying 30 cars. It was longer than the entire bridge and had a total weight of 850 tons. In this day an urban legend began to spread, stating that the bridge's designer – Röthlisberger – committed suicide before the test, fearing a failure of the bridge. This would have led to the start of a series of suicides from the bridge (Röthlisberger actually didn't commit suicide in 1889 but died of pneumonia in his house in Chaumont-Neuchatel on 25 August 1911).
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