The Citadel Rail Bridge (Most przy Cytadeli) was a bridge in

Warsaw Warsaw ( pl, Warszawa, ), officially the Capital City of Warsaw,, abbreviation: ''m.st. Warszawa'' is the capital and largest city of Poland. The metropolis stands on the River Vistula in east-central Poland, and its population is officia ...

, crossing the

Vistula River The Vistula (; pl, Wisła, ) is the longest river in Poland and the ninth-longest river in Europe, at in length. The drainage basin, reaching into three other nations, covers , of which is in Poland. The Vistula rises at Barania Góra in ...

. It opened in November, 1875, and was expanded with a second part in 1908. It was blown up for the final time in September 13, 1944 by retreating Germans and was later replaced with the

Gdański Bridge Gdański (femine: Gdańska, plural: Gdańscy) is a Polish-language toponymic literally meaning "of/from Gdańsk". It may refer to: Places Pomerania, Poland * Gdańsk County * Uniwersytet Gdański, a public research university located in Gdań ...

History

The Kierbedzia Bridge, built in 1864, was originally planned as a railway bridge, connecting the Petersburg train station (now Warszawa Wileńska station) with the Vienna train station (Dworzec Wiedeński, which was demolished in 1944). These plans were abandoned and the bridge was built solely for road transport (with tracks for horse-drawn trams). It was decided soon after to build a railway bridge in a different place in Warsaw. The choice fell much further north, at the

Warsaw Citadel Warsaw Citadel (Polish: Cytadela Warszawska) is a 19th-century fortress in Warsaw, Poland. It was built by order of Tsar Nicholas I after the suppression of the 1830 November Uprising in order to bolster imperial Russian control of the city. ...

(south of the fortress). This bridge was built from April, 1873 and was opened in November, 1875. It was simply called the "Second Bridge" (as it was the second Warsaw bridge crossing the Vistula). Officially it was called the "Railway Bridge", even though it was both a rail and road bridge. The bridge had a rail track running on one level and the lower level was designed for pedestrian and vehicular traffic which was originally intended only for military traffic but civilian traffic was allowed as well. The bridge turned out to be insufficient, mainly because it only had one rail track. For this reason, by 1908 the "Second Railway Bridge" was built. It was also known as the "Fourth Bridge" (after the third

Poniatowski Bridge The Poniatowski Bridge ( pl, Most Poniatowskiego) is a bridge in Warsaw, Poland. Originally built between 1904 and 1914, it was damaged in each World War and rebuilt after each. It spans the Vistula River, connecting Warsaw's Powiśle and Praga ...

, which was built from 1904 to 1914). It was built right next to the first (basically as one bridge) and had two railway tracks. The existing Railway Bridge was handed to the city and adapted for road and pedestrian traffic only. Both bridges shared the fate of other bridges in Warsaw - on August 5, 1915, they were blown up by the retreating Russian forces. The bridge from 1875 lost three spans while the other bridge from 1908 lost four central spans (the third, fourth, fifth and sixth, counting from the Citadel). The Second Bridge was rebuilt by the Germans during

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

. The Fourth Bridge was rebuilt during World War I or just after its completion, and in the summer of 1920 it was rebuilt as a military road bridge under the direction of Bronisław Plebiński. Both bridges were again blown up on 13 September, 1944 by Germans withdrawing from

Praga Praga is a district of Warsaw, Poland. It is on the east bank of the river Vistula. First mentioned in 1432, until 1791 it formed a separate town with its own city charter. History The historical Praga was a small settlement located at ...

. Well after World War II in 1959, the new

was built upon the pillars of the old bridge. The bridge today stands in exactly the same place as its pre-war counterparts. In 2009, parts of the old bridge were excavated to be exhibited in public with a fragment Kierbedzia Bridge rediscovered in 2011.

References

{{Reflist Bridges in Warsaw