Bohdalec's 1913 Truss Overpass Reopens After Its Second Overhaul

The steel overpass carrying Moskevská street across the railway at Bohdalec is finished and returns to full traffic on Monday 31 August. The Technical Road Administration (TSK) has completed a refurbishment of a riveted truss from 1913 — the second large repair the structure has had, after the overhaul carried out in 2005 — and Zdopravy.cz reported the reopening on 30 August.

What was done

TSK set out the scope in a statement quoted by Zdopravy.cz:

We repaired its structure, renewed the corrosion protection, replaced damaged parts and the expansion joints, added drainage and renewed the road surface. The works also include the installation of new steel crash barriers.

— Technická správa komunikací hl. m. Prahy

None of that is glamorous, and all of it is what decides whether a steel bridge is still standing in another thirty years. Corrosion protection and drainage in particular are the same item viewed from two ends: water that is not led off the deck is what eventually eats the structure underneath it.

The structure

The bridge is 78.6 metres long and its deck sits 8.5 metres above the tracks, crossing the Vršovice marshalling yard. The steelwork was built by the firm of the Prášil brothers, and it is constructionally very close to the bridge at Výtoň — which is why Zdopravy.cz calls it that bridge's sibling. It is, in the site's phrase, one of the characteristic symbols of the whole locality.

The 2005 repair gives a sense of the scale of what a riveted structure demands. That job replaced 130 tonnes of steel and used 20,000 rivets, made as faithful replicas of the originals from the start of the twentieth century. This year's work was lighter in that sense, addressing the protective layers, the damaged elements and the surface rather than the substance of the frame.

Working over a live railway

The detail that shapes the whole job is one line in the TSK account: the works were carried out with rail traffic maintained. The corridor beneath the bridge is busy, and keeping it open dictates when work above it can happen, how loads are handled and what can be lifted across. It is the reason a comparatively contained repair on a 78-metre span takes a season rather than a few weeks.

Why this one matters

This is our reading rather than anything the source argues. A riveted truss from 1913 has now been through two rounds of work in twenty years — one that went as far as replacing 130 tonnes of steel, one that stopped at the protective layers — and it is going back into service carrying ordinary street traffic over an operating rail yard. Whatever case exists for keeping structures of that age is made in exactly this kind of job: coatings, joints, drainage, the items nobody photographs.

For drivers the change is simple. From Monday the Moskevská crossing of the railway is open without restriction.