Bingen Central Station - Signal Box

Signal Box

The Bingerbrück Kreuzbach (Bkb) signal box is located to the north of Bingen central station near the former southern hump of the marshalling yard. It is a gantry signal box, which increased the available room for operations by extending over the railway facilities. This signal box was designed by the architect Hans Kleinschmidt as a steel skeleton and was designed and completed in 1936. The western end of the building is built of broken stone. The actual signal tower is 15 metres long and in addition it has operating rooms and a pedestrian bridge. The interlocking system, which it housed, was a 10 metre-long electro-mechanical interlocking system of class E 43 made by the Siemens company. At its peak, the signal box was staffed by five people who were particularly responsible for the marshalling and operation of trains at the freight yard. In 1996, after 60 years of operations, the signal box, together with the other signal boxes, was removed from service and replaced by the central interlocking Bf on the Nahe bridge. The gantry signal box was listed as a historic landmark on 8 November 2005. In addition, it is now one of the cultural monuments listed in the UNESCO World Heritage Site of the Upper Middle Rhine Valley. After an inspection of the bridge carried out in 2006 found structural defects, access to the bridge was blocked. In April 2009, Bingen town council requested that the federal and state governments allocate funds for the preservation of the World Heritage Site towards the restoration of the signal box.

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