The railroad drawbridge on the Regalica

The drawbridge on the Regalica, i.e. the Eastern Oder is a monument unique in Europe. This is the only railway bridge of this type in Poland and the only one with a power drive in Europe. Entered in the register of monuments, the bridge was built in 1877 as a part of the railway line No. 273 between Wrocław and Szczecin, hence the common name - the Bridge of Wrocław.

About 262 metres high, the bridge consists of five spans. Initially, the fifth span was rotating, but the bridge had to be rebuilt with time, and the element was replaced by a bascule. The bascule, or the fifth span, weighs approx. 163 tons, is more than 17 metres long and 5 metres wide. The bridge was destroyed during the war - it was blown up in 1945, but it was reconstructed in 1949. Mostly, building parts extracted from the riverbed were used. One of the major repairs as of yet took place in 2010, when the barge hit the bridge. The PKP Polish Railway Lines planned to modernise the entire structure in 2015, including, inter alia, the replacement of the control system with a more modern one, and the protection of the bridge from corrosion. 

Currently, the bridge is opened even several times a day. This usually takes only a few minutes. The engine operating the entire mechanism is only 27kW of power, but the whole process of lifting the span is supported additionally by a hundred-ton metal block being a counterweight. It is located on the north side of the structure. If You want to see how the whole process of opening the bridge looks like, You can do that every first Wednesday of a month, when it is opened and maintained. Once a year, during the Railway Technology Days at the beginning of June, it can be visited with a guide.

It is interesting that this bridge was immortalised in the Oscar-nominated short film 'Most' of in 2003.