Vierendeelbridge Lanaken

Information

Bridge near Gellik, also known as bridge near Lanaken. This bridge has a special kind of construction invented by the famous Belgian engineer Vierendeel. He thought of a new kind of truss-beam construction which needed less material use than known bridges of that time. The disadvantage was the increased stresses in the construction. Due to bad cold weather and inferior material use this led to one bridge's collapse. We visited the bridge in 2006 during the tracking of railway line 20.

History

There is little to find about the history of this bridge. The bridges crossing the Albert Channel were build roughly between 1933 and 1938. In the second world war most of these bridges were destroyed in order to slow down the Germon offensive. After the world war the bridges got repaired. In 1992 the bridge was put out of use. It was to be destroyed in order to widen the Albertkanaal. However the bridge was saved. There are plans to reopen the railwayline in 2012. However these plans aren't concrete yet.