Val-Benoit Railway Bridge 130914

Liège, September 13th 2014

The truncated service Liers - Liège-Guillemins - Gouvy - Troisvierges (due railway works that weekend between Troisvierges and Luxembourg) crosses the Val-Benoît railway bridge across the Meuze river in Liège.

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Despite its unassuming looks, the Val-Benoît bridge has a rich and varied history - albeit with a dark stain.  Originally built in 1842 as a shared road- and railway bridge, the Val-Benoît bridge linked Brussels and Liège with Aachen and Cologne.  The original bridge was a stone masonry bridge consisting of five archs; when it was inaugurated, the road bridge had a toll levy, but this was abolished in 1845 after protests from Liège inhabitants.

Already towards the end of the 19th century, plans existed for the Val-Benoît bridge to be replaced, as railway traffic increased exponentially.  Plans for a new bridge were submitted in 1892, however in the end these plans were shelved and the existing bridge was merely strengthened with concrete injections.  During the hectic September months of 1914, the Liège Fortresses fell so quicky to the advancing German troops, that the bridge was conquered by the Germans before any demolition charges could be placed; as a result the bridge survived the First World War.  By 1926, the bridge had become a pure railway bridge, as the former road section now harboured additional railway lines.

In 1935, the First bridge of Val-Benoît was replaced by the Second bridge.  Unlike the first bridge, the new railway bridge consisted of a dual bridge, each consisting of two separate cast-iron "Vierendeel" constructions with a stone central support column.  With the lessons of 1914 in mind - and the dark spectre of war hanging over Europe once again - the new bridge was built with a demolition chamber in the central support.

The new Second bridge was ready well ahead of Liège's little party: in 1936, it had been decided that Liège would be hosting the Exposition Internationale de la Technique de l'Eau (International Exposition of Water Management), an international exposition which was meant to last from May to November 1939.  However, by the time the exposition opened, the dark clouds of war were hanging over Europe.  While the world was mobilising for the upcoming conflict, the exposition went ahead as if nothing was happening.  During the month of August, the atmosphere grew ever more dark and grim. The Belgian army mobilised, and bridges across the Meuze were secretively and preventively mined at the War seemed more unavoidable by the day.

On August 31st 1939, Liège was not covered by the dark clouds of war - but the dark clouds of a heavy thunderstorm.  During the fierce storm, lightning hit the Val-Benoît railway bridge.  The result was devastating - the demolition charge inside the support column was ignited by the lightning strike, sending the bridge sky-high, just as a Type 81 freight locomotive was running light from the Kinkempois yard towards Liège... and the Ostend-Luxembourg express train was crossing it in the other direction.  When the dust had settled, twelve bodies were recovered from the wreckage, as well as over eighty injured people.  The remains of a further six victims were never recovered.

After the storm had passed, the true scale of the disaster became apparent - other than the Val-Benoît railway bridge, a further lightning strike had detonated the demolition charges of the Ougrée road bridge.  As a result, procedures were changed, and the Belgian Army made sure that mined bridges did not have a detonator placed on the demolition charges to avoid a repeat of the Val-Benoît/Ougrée disasters - a decision that would come back to haunt them on May 10th 1940.

But almost as soon as the thunderstorm had settled, the firestorm erupted - the day after the Val-Benoît/Ougrée disasters saw the outbreak of hostilities between Germany and Poland; two days later, France and Great Britain declared war on Germany.  The 1939 Exposition was quietly closed in the aftermath of both disasters.

Following the German invasion of May 1940 and the subsequent Nazi occupation of Belgium, the Third railway bridge of Val-Benoît was inaugurated in 1942.  However, almost as soon as it was complete, the bridge became the focus of a number of Allied aerial bombardments to disrupt the German railway traffic - barely two years later, in September 1944, this bridge fell, this time under the weight of bombs of the USAAF.

The current railway bridge of Val-Benoît is the fourth railway bridge, built after the war to replace the 1942 bridge.  While simple in construction, it is a sturdy and common design, harbouring both the lines 37 and 37A (four tracks in total).  Other than the installation of catenary in 1966, not much has been changed to these bridges since their construction in the late-1940s.

The bridge tower and support cables are not part of the railway bridge, but of the adjoining road bridge.