Cologne: Truck crashes into a bridge – and causes chaos on the train

Created: 11/22/2022, 13:52

By: Maximilian Gang

The truck container shows the severity of the impact.

© Federal Police Headquarters Sankt Augustin

A truck drove into a railway bridge in Cologne.

Because components of the bridges were bent, the railway line had to be closed for hours.

Cologne – A truck driver wanted to drive under a Deutsche Bahn bridge on the inner Kanalstraße at the corner of Hornstraße in Cologne at around 3:15 p.m. on Monday.

However, the 31-year-old underestimated the height of his vehicle.

As a result, his truck, which was loaded with containers, touched the overpass in the Neuehrenfeld district of Cologne (Cologne-Ehrenfeld district), the police said.

Accident in Cologne: Truck thunders against the bridge

The impact was so strong that the crossbeam of the bridge was bent, reports 24RHEIN.

This prompted the federal police to block the railway line on the bridge, it is said.

Trucks often got stuck at the bridge, most recently in mid-September.

In order to be able to rule out danger, the police officers contacted an expert to check the statics of the building.

The state police of North Rhine-Westphalia meanwhile recorded the accident.

The bridge is colloquially known in Cologne as the "Idiot Bridge".

Truck drives against bridge - railway line blocked for hours

The bridge remained closed to rail traffic during the measure.

During this time, the route could not be used by express trains, regional trains and trams - for two hours.

This had consequences: A total of 32 trains were affected by the blockage.

The result: 21 trains had to be diverted.

All in all, the delay was 614 minutes, the police said.

At the moment, passengers in North Rhine-Westphalia sometimes have to be patient.

Two major construction sites and many cases of illness are already causing many restrictions on rail traffic in NRW.