Schutzbrücken and the German Angst

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Donaumast
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Schutzbrücken and the German Angst

Bericht door Donaumast » 20 apr 2023 21:11

In the earliest years of power transmission, peopled feared the new technology and its power and they tried anything to protect themselves from the dangers of electricity. So there was a law in Germany around the year 1900 that on all crossings of railways and sometimes roads a metal structure, called "Schutzbrücke" (protectional bridge) was constructed to protect people, who go under the power line from being electrocuted by the high voltage from above.

This is the only existing Schutzbrücke I know. It belongs to an old traction overhead power line in central silesia, which is now part of the polish medium voltage grid:

https://www.google.com/maps/@50.9796161 ... 384!8i8192

Are there still more of them? Did they only exist in Germany or in other countries as well?

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Hans
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Re: Schutzbrücken and the German Angst

Bericht door Hans » 21 apr 2023 11:50

This is an interesting and pretty nice discovery. :)
I thing we all here were unaware of this ancient fear. It appears now not that much has changed over the pace of 120 years, however people now tend to fear the magnetic fields rather than the risk of electrocution.

We know this kind of constructions, however in another type, were also present in very old French lines. Tom took some pictures a few years ago, depicting this structure who must be meant to serve the same purpose as the bridge you mentioned.

Traverse-met-draadvanger.jpg
Foto made by Tom in France, used at the mainsite
Traverse-met-draadvanger.jpg (28.19 KiB) 1916 keer bekeken
Halfverankering is net als Volbeat: het kan altijd

Toliman
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Re: Schutzbrücken and the German Angst

Bericht door Toliman » 21 apr 2023 14:50

Interestingly as one can read on https://www.sueddeutsche.de/wirtschaft/ ... -99-399375 a wire of a high-voltage line (the line belongs to the German railway company, what is not mentioned in the text, but can be easily find out using Wikimapia) fell on April 21st, 2023 on a motorway south of Hannover. And it was no stormy weather!

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Knarvel
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Re: Schutzbrücken and the German Angst

Bericht door Knarvel » 27 apr 2023 06:25

If you follow this line to the west you will find another such constructin here. Originalley this line was build by the German Reichsbahn, carrying 80 kV, 16,6 Hz. acting as the Bahnstom-transportation network of those days.
Nowadays this line is used for 15 kV general purpose local distribution

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