[HN Gopher] The Veluwemeer Aqueduct: Netherland's Unique Water B...
___________________________________________________________________
The Veluwemeer Aqueduct: Netherland's Unique Water Bridge
Author : bookofjoe
Score : 23 points
Date : 2021-05-31 10:34 UTC (12 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (interestingengineering.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (interestingengineering.com)
| Tomte wrote:
| Germany has two big ones:
| https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wasserstrassenkreuz_Minden and
| https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wasserstrassenkreuz_Magdeburg
|
| I'd expect the Netherlands to have quite a few of those, maybe a
| bit smaller. Is that really so special?
| mpol wrote:
| I don't understand what's special about it. Another strange
| thing, the city nearby wasn't even mentioned and I had no clue
| where it even was, Nijkerk or Harderwijk. Apparently it's near
| Harderwijk and I even passed it by bicycle a few years ago. The
| view is nice from both sides, but I never considered the tunnel
| to be interesting. I guess I am the wrong kind of nerd, not one
| for tunnels :)
|
| In normal conversation we just call it a tunnel, just like this
| traintunnel near Kampen:
| https://www.openstreetmap.org/way/426003807
| Freak_NL wrote:
| We have a bunch. I live within 5 km of four of them. They make
| a lot of sense in a flat country.
| rollulus wrote:
| Not sure why exactly this aquaduct is article-worthy or even on
| HN. In The Netherlands we have plenty of aqueducts, the first
| modern one is the Ringvaart Haarlemmermeer one [1], built in
| 1961.
|
| [1]":
| https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aquaduct_Ringvaart_Haarlemmerm...
| bouke wrote:
| I believe the interesting bit is its short length. Usually an
| aqueduct is part of a river or canal, but in this case it is
| connecting a lake on either side.
|
| Edit, then there's also the new Aquaduct Vechtzicht, recently
| build and at 65m it is the widest aquaduct of Europe.
|
| https://nl.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aquaduct_Vechtzicht
| lucb1e wrote:
| Are aqueducts common where you are from?
|
| As someone from the Netherlands, I honestly don't understand the
| article. It speaks of a 'unique' project and a 'novel' approach,
| but the only thing that's supposed to make it so seems to be:
|
| > Unlike other solutions for allowing vehicular traffic and
| waterborne traffic to pass over or under one another, engineers
| decided on a different approach: a water bridge.
|
| While aqueducts are far less common than normal bridges in the
| Netherlands, they're a normal concept to me. Are they that
| uncommon? Does your country have them?
| schoen wrote:
| I haven't heard of an aqueduct here in the United States
| capable of carrying boat traffic. I think of aqueducts here as
| only part of drinking water or irrigation water systems, like
| the California Aqueduct which brings water from Northern
| California to Southern California.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Aqueduct
|
| I don't think of them as parts of navigable waterways!
|
| Edit: Apparently there are some, mainly on the Erie and
| Chesapeake and Ohio canals.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Navigable_aqueducts_i...
|
| https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Canal_aqueducts_...
|
| The Erie Canal is still operating along with some of its
| aqueducts, while the Chesapeake and Ohio canal has been shut
| down and it seems most of its aqueducts are no longer
| maintained or operational.
|
| I don't think I ever knew about that. Maybe it's better-known
| to people who live in the vicinity of those canals?
|
| Artificial navigable waterways are a lot more pervasive in the
| Netherlands than here. :-) Maybe partly because the U.S. is a
| lot hillier.
| Animats wrote:
| The Erie Canal opened in 1825, and the first railroad in the
| US opened in 1831. It was a bypass for a slow section of the
| Erie Canal. So narrow canals in the US became obsolete before
| many were built.
|
| The California Aqueduct has some water bridges over the
| aqueduct.[1] That's to keep agricultural runoff out of the
| water supply.
|
| [1] https://earth.google.com/web/@37.1548186,-121.06138975,71
| .78...
| Grismar wrote:
| You do realise that an aqueduct carrying only water is
| carrying the same load as one carrying lots of ships? (maybe
| you do) The weight of the ships displaces exactly the amount
| of water with that weight. There is of course some water
| movement to deal with, and there are safety margins required,
| in case of accidents, etc. - perhaps that was your point, but
| I think it's worth pointing out, if people aren't familiar
| with aquaducts.
| Doctor_Fegg wrote:
| Plenty here in the UK. Here's the best known:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pontcysyllte_Aqueduct - the
| highest in the world and a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
| twic wrote:
| Another in the UK is the Iron Trunk, carrying the Grand Union
| canal over the river Great Ouse:
|
| https://www.nationaltransporttrust.org.uk/heritage-
| sites/her...
|
| This one is just outside Milton Keynes, which might be a bit
| more accessible to foreign HN readers visiting the UK than
| the Welsh Marches.
| Freestyler_3 wrote:
| https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/gouwe-aqueduct
|
| Must be a nice view, both ways.
| shiftpgdn wrote:
| Fun fact: If you've ever been to Magic Kingdom at Walt Disney
| World in Florida you've probably driven under one of their three
| water bridges: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ql0ZZtNAAUo
| LargoLasskhyfv wrote:
| I am unimpressed. Compare to this
| https://englishrussia.com/2007/12/07/from-river-to-river/
|
| A "ferry" for ships on rails, carrying ships from river to river
| over a dam. With giant high voltage catenary on the side!
| justoreply wrote:
| Germany has them too
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magdeburg_Water_Bridge
| jongpieter wrote:
| Interesting article, however not as unique as the author
| presumes. We have an even larger naviduct [1], that also acts as
| a lock between two large lakes in the Netherlands.
|
| [1] - https://nl.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naviduct_Krabbersgat
| usefulcat wrote:
| "During the planning phase for the project, drawbridges, ferries,
| and tunnels were considered as likely solutions to allowing the
| road to fully cross the lake. However, these were decided
| against, and the novel approach of building a short aqueduct over
| the road was selected."
|
| If you look on Google maps, the same road has a bridge over the
| same body of water only about a quarter of a mile from this
| acqeduct. Given that, I don't understand the quote above, nor do
| I understand why there was a need for this aqueduct. Maybe they
| built the aqueduct first, and later decided there was a need for
| larger boats to pass so then they built the bridge? Although the
| article states the aqueduct is only from 2002, which seems not
| that old for this kind of infrastructure.
| bouke wrote:
| And now the design of the road with the bridge and the
| roundabout connecting the road with N707 has a costly
| consequence. They want to introduce a tunnel to pass the N707,
| but the altitude of the road due to the bridge leaves little
| room to make that possible.
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2021-05-31 23:02 UTC)