The TGV is France's intercity high-speed rail service, operated by SNCF. SNCF worked on a high-speed rail network from 1966 to 1974 and presented the project to President Georges Pompidou who approved it. Originally designed as turbotrains to be powered by gas turbines, TGV prototypes evolved into electric trains with the 1973 oil crisis. In 1976 the SNCF ordered 87 high-speed trains from Alstom. Following the inaugural service between Paris and Lyon in 1981 on the LGV Sud-Est, the network, centered on Paris, has expanded to connect major cities across France and in neighbouring countries on a combination of high-speed and conventional lines. The TGV network in France carries about 110 million passengers a year.
The Ligne à Grande Vitesse Nord, typically shortened to LGV Nord, is a French 333-kilometre (207 mi)-long high-speed rail line, opened in 1993, that connects Paris to the Belgian border and the Channel Tunnel via Lille.
Kehl is a town in southwestern Germany in the Ortenaukreis, Baden-Württemberg. It is located on the river Rhine, directly opposite the French city of Strasbourg with which it shares some municipal services. The Strasbourg tramway network for instance extends to Kehl.
The Ligne à Grande Vitesse Est européenne, typically shortened to LGV Est, is a French high-speed rail line that connects Vaires-sur-Marne and Vendenheim. The line halved the travel time between Paris and Strasbourg and provides fast services between Paris and the principal cities of Eastern France as well as Luxembourg, Germany and Switzerland. The LGV Est is a segment of the Main Line for Europe project to connect Paris with Budapest with high-speed rail service.
The Pierre Pflimlin Bridge is a 957-metre (3,140 ft) long motorway bridge over the river Rhine, with a main span measuring 205 metres (673 ft). It connects Germany and France, at Kehl and Strasbourg. It is named after Pierre Pflimlin, a former French prime minister, and was opened in 2002. It was funded by France, Germany and the European Union.
The siege of Kehl lasted from 26 October 1796 to 9 January 1797. Habsburg and Württemberg regulars numbering 40,000, under the command of Maximilian Anton Karl, Count Baillet de Latour, besieged and captured the French-controlled fortifications at the village of Kehl in the German state of Baden-Durlach. The fortifications at Kehl represented important bridgehead crossing the Rhine to Strasbourg, an Alsatian city, a French Revolutionary stronghold. This battle was part of the Rhine Campaign of 1796, in the French Revolutionary War of the First Coalition.
The first French high-speed rail line opened in 1981, between Paris's and Lyon's suburbs. The LGV Sud-Est was at that time the only high-speed rail line in Europe. As of June 2021, the French high-speed rail network comprises 2,800 km of Lignes à grande vitesse (LGV).
The Duisburg–Hochfeld railway bridge spans the Rhine in the German city of Duisburg on the Duisburg-Ruhrort–Mönchengladbach line. The first bridge was built by the Rhenish Railway Company and put into operation at the end of 1873. It was replaced by a new bridge in 1927, which was badly damaged during the Second World War, but rebuilt and is still serves rail traffic between the Ruhr region and Aachen.
The Hindenburg Bridge was a railway bridge over the Rhine between Rüdesheim in the German state of Hesse and Bingen-Kempten state of Rhineland-Palatinate, named in 1918 after Field Marshal Paul von Hindenburg, later German President. The bridge was put in service in 1915, destroyed in the Second World War and never rebuilt.
The Wesel Railway Bridge was a bridge on the Haltern–Venlo railway, built as part of the Hamburg–Venlo railway by the Cologne-Minden Railway Company, and opened on 1 March 1874. The 1,950-metre (6,400 ft) long railway bridge at Wesel was the last Rhine bridge remaining in German hands during World War II.
The Waldshut–Koblenz Rhine Bridge is a single-track railway bridge on the Turgi–Koblenz–Waldshut railway, between Waldshut and Koblenz AG, crossing the Rhine and the border between Germany and Switzerland. It was the first railway bridge built over the Rhine below Lake Constance. It is the only major railway bridge over the Rhine, which is completely preserved in its original condition and is one of Europe's few lattice truss bridges. It is also one of the oldest railway bridges in the world.
Incremental launch is a method in civil engineering of building a complete bridge deck from one abutment of the bridge only, manufacturing the superstructure of the bridge by sections to the other side. In current applications, the method is highly mechanised and uses pre-stressed concrete.
The Saverne Tunnel, also known as the Ernolsheim-lès-Saverne Tunnel, is a twin-bore 4-kilometre-long (2.5 mi), high-speed rail tunnel in western Bas-Rhin, France. It carries the LGV Est line of France's TGV high-speed rail network through the narrowest part of the Vosges mountain range, beneath Mont Saint-Michel and adjacent to the Saverne Pass. The tunnel consists of two bores, containing one rail track each, that are connected by passageways every 500 metres (1,600 ft). The LGV Est crosses the 270 m (890 ft) Haspelbaechel viaduct near the western end of the tunnel. The tunnel was excavated by a tunnel boring machine between November 2011 and February 2013. Civil engineering work on the tunnel ended in April 2014 and it opened with the rest of the second phase of the LGV Est on 3 July 2016. The total cost of the tunnel was approximately €200 million.
During the Battle of Kehl, a Republican French force under the direction of Jean Charles Abbatucci mounted an amphibious crossing of the Rhine River against a defending force of soldiers from the Swabian Circle. In this action of the War of the First Coalition, the French drove the Swabians from their positions in Kehl and subsequently controlled the bridgehead on both sides of the Rhine.
The Second Battle of Kehl occurred on 18 September 1796, when General Franz Petrasch's Austrian and Imperial troops stormed the French-held bridgehead over the Rhine river. The village of Kehl, which is now in the German state of Baden-Württemberg, was then part of Baden-Durlach. Across the river, Strasbourg, an Alsatian city, was a French Revolutionary stronghold. This battle was part of the Rhine Campaign of 1796, in the French Revolutionary War of the First Coalition.
The Viaduct of Moresnet, also known as the Geul Valley bridge is a railway bridge above and on the southern side of the village of Moresnet, within the municipality of Plombières, close to the three-way Belgian frontier with Germany and the Netherlands.
The Hammer Bridge is a 220 metres (722 ft) long railway bridge on the Weser Valley line crossing the Geul valley a few hundred meters to the south of Hergenrath.
On 14 November 2015, a TGV train derailed in Eckwersheim, Alsace, France, while performing commissioning trials on the second phase of the LGV Est high-speed rail line, which was scheduled to open for commercial service five months later. The derailment resulted in 11 deaths among those aboard, while the 42 others aboard the train were injured. It was the first fatal derailment in the history of the TGV and the third derailment since the TGV entered commercial service in 1981.
The Maxau Rhine Bridges connect the Baden-Württemberg city of Karlsruhe and the Rhineland-Palatinate town of Wörth in Germany. They cross the Rhine in the suburb of Maxau in the Karlsruhe district of Knielingen and the Wörth suburb of Maximiliansau. The Hofgut Maxau, established by Maximilian von Baden (1796–1882), younger son of Charles Frederick, Grand Duke of Baden, that Maxau is named after is located on the east bank of the Rhine near the bridge. Today there are two parallel bridge structures for road and rail traffic.
Mother Kinzig is a 1861 cast iron statue in the German city of Kehl. It represents a "beautiful, dreamy, and sexy", "marvelously pretty" nude woman, who has been called "the most beautiful girl of Kehl".
