Construcción del Puente de los Franceses (Charles Clifford)

The Puente de los Franceses (Bridge of the Frenchmen) railway

viaduct A viaduct is a specific type of bridge that consists of a series of arches, piers or columns supporting a long elevated railway or road. Typically a viaduct connects two points of roughly equal elevation, allowing direct overpass across a wide v ...

is located in

Madrid Madrid ( , ) is the capital and most populous city of Spain. The city has almost 3.4 million inhabitants and a metropolitan area population of approximately 6.7 million. It is the second-largest city in the European Union (EU), and ...

Spain , image_flag = Bandera de España.svg , image_coat = Escudo de España (mazonado).svg , national_motto = ''Plus ultra'' (Latin)(English: "Further Beyond") , national_anthem = (English: "Royal March") , i ...

. Comprising five semi-circular

brick A brick is a type of block used to build walls, pavements and other elements in masonry construction. Properly, the term ''brick'' denotes a block composed of dried clay, but is now also used informally to denote other chemically cured cons ...

skew arch A skew arch (also known as an oblique arch) is a method of construction that enables an arch bridge to span an obstacle at some angle other than a right angle. This results in the faces of the arch not being perpendicular to its abutments and its ...

es, it was built in the second half of the 19th century to carry the railway line from the north (Madrid - Venta de Baños -

Irun Irun ( es, Irún, eu, Irun) is a town of the Bidasoaldea region in the province of Gipuzkoa in the Basque Country (autonomous community), Basque Autonomous Community, Spain. History It lies on the foundations of the ancient Oiasso, cited as ...

) across the

River Manzanares The Manzanares () is a river in the centre of the Iberian Peninsula, which flows from the Sierra de Guadarrama, passes through Madrid, and eventually empties into the Jarama river, which in turn is a right-bank tributary to the Tagus. In its u ...

Toponymy

The bridge is named after the nationality of the engineers who devised the project, who were of French origin. The bridge is also known as the French Bridge.

History

The bridge was built between 1860 and 1862, along with other construction work on the railway line to the north, which began in 1856, by the ''Compañía de los Caminos de Hierro del Norte de España''.

References

{{Coord, 40, 26, 1.2, N, 3, 44, 9.1, W, type:landmark_region:ES, display=title Bridges in Madrid Crossings of the River Manzanares Arch bridges Skew bridges