most Pilczycki, Wrocław

The granite setts beneath the traffic give most Pilczycki an older, workmanlike character, but the structure you see dates from 1959. It carries both road traffic and the tram route toward Leśnica across the Ślęza, joining the Pilczyce side of the river with Żerniki. Two tram tracks run directly within the carriageway, so rails and road share this narrow crossing rather than being separated.

This is a compact steel bridge: two spans together measure just over twenty-four metres, and its deck is a little over ten metres wide. A newer Pilczycki Bridge was built immediately north of here; afterward, this older crossing was intended chiefly for trams, with access for local cars, while ordinary vehicle traffic shifted to the new bridge. It later returned to service as a temporary diversion during construction of the Wrocław motorway bypass and associated road works.

There is a sharp episode in its history. On the fourteenth of April 1991, a number 10 tram heading for Leśnica derailed here and fell from the bridge onto the riverbank. Stones forced into the rails caused the crash. Before 1945, Breslau’s German name Lohebrücke simply meant a bridge over the Ślęza; it was used for the city’s bridges across that river.