The Hammer railway bridge spans the Rhine at river kilometer 738. Today's bridge was completed in 1987, its predecessor in 1870. At that time it was the first fixed Rhine bridge in the city of Düsseldorf.
Train traffic soon increased to such an extent that the two-track bridge was not sufficient. A second bridge was built just 32 meters upstream between 1909 and 1911, also with safety towers on both sides of the Rhine, but they seemed a bit larger and more powerful. Train traffic could now roll on four tracks.
Hammer railway bridge The two security towers next to the bridge downstream on both sides of the Rhine are relics of the old Hammer Rheinbrücke. Official name: "König Wilhelms-Rhein-Eisenbahn-Bridge". The towers were not just a piece of jewelry, but also served to secure the strategically important crossing of the Rhine between Neuss and Düsseldorf.
Even before the official opening in 1870, on July 24th, a train with soldiers and material drove over the bridge to the French war. On November 20, 1869, during the construction of the railway bridge, one of the four arches collapsed when a ship carrying iron ore crashed into bridge scaffolding. 15 people were killed in the accident. Work continued until the following spring.
Then came World War II. The Wehrmacht blew up all the Rhine bridges when the Allies approached. The Hammer railway bridge was not spared. The bridge that lay downstream, the older bridge, was rebuilt from the rubble of both structures.
With the construction of the East-West S-Bahn, today's Hammer Eisenbrücke, a truss bridge with a Düsseldorf arch, was finally built between 1984 and 1987. Until the opening of the Grümpentalbrücke (2009), it was the longest-span railway bridge in Germany with a span of 250 meters. However, the two security towers from 1870 remained as a monument. The Bergischer Lehnsritter Verein has moved into quarters there.