Pont Rouelle bridge in Paris
This is a railway bridge only that goes over the River Seine and first constructed for the 1900 World Fair, it was abandoned for a while, then restored and became operational again in the 1980s.
A bit of history
This bridge in Paris was originally designed by the architect A Bonnet in order to make a connection with the Champ de Mars station in readiness for the Universal Exhibition or World Fair in Paris that was to be held in the year 1900.
Throughout the city there were many projects undertaken for this same reason including the Pont Alexandre III bridge and numerous buildings like the Grand Palais and the Petit Palais, and work started on this particular bridge in 1897, which was designed purely as a railway bridge.
It was constructed by the engineers Moise and Widmer in co-operation with the architect Bonnet, and when it opened in 1900 it was named Pont Rouelle after the road called Rue Rouelle located very close by, which in itself was named after the French chemist from the 1700s called Guillaume-Francois Rouelle.
Initially it was constructed to meet the needs of tourists and visitors to Paris, but the railway line ended up being used for transporting goods for a couple of decades until it was eventually decommissioned and obsolete by the 1930s.
That is until the start of the 1980s, when discussions started regarding utilising the bridge one again for a railway track, and between the years of 1984 and 1985 there were many renovations taking place in order to take the new RER line C trains.
About Pont Rouelle over the River Seine
Now as you can probably gather from reading above, the Pont Rouelle is still just a railway bridge in Paris, but it still has the same characteristics as when it was first constructed, and these are in fact very varied.
In fact, there are several different sections to this bridge in Paris and on the right arm of the River Seine there is a single branch with an arch constructed of steel, whereas the left arm of the river has two piers, piles, pylons, or supports as they may be called, within the river.
This makes the two main sections that cross the River Seine completely different to each other, yet there is another major point, and that is the small stone arch, which is located on the Ile aux Cygnes island, and this goes over the Allee aux Cygnes.
Visiting Pont Rouelle in Paris
Well, when it comes to visiting the Pont Rouelle bridge, because it is a railway line for the RER, the nearest train station is the Avenue du President Kennedy serving line C, however, the nearest metro station is the Bir-Hakeim stop via line 6.
