Brücken#

Bridges: There is a stone bridge dating from Roman times at Lanzing near Melk. One of the oldest arched bridges, dating from the 12th century, crosses the River Kamp near the monastery of Zwettl. In the late Middle Ages three wooden bridges were built across the River Danube Vienna (1439), Krems-Stein (1463) and Linz (1497). In the 19th century the construction of railways constituted a new challenge for bridge-builders. From 1837 the first wooden railway bridge was built for the Northern railway crossed the Danube. Numerous arched bridges and 16 major viaducts of the Semmering Railway show that along with wood, stone was long used for the construction of bridges. Since the 1860s iron and steel have been used, at first mainly for lattice and chain bridges. The Trisanna Bridge, a semi parabolic girder bridge with a span of 120 m and built in 1882/84 for the railway across the Arlberg massif won international acclaim. This bridge is the longest railway bridge in Austria; in 1964 the old construction had to be replaced by a modern girder system ("Langer Girder"). The first reinforced concrete bridges were built in 1903 on the Karawanken railway line.

The Reichsbruecke bridge across the River Danube, which was built in 1937 and collapsed August 1, 1976, and the Europabruecke Bridge on the Brenner motorway (1963) are particularly well known.