Sober farewell to Schinkelbrug control towers

We walk up a scarily steep staircase to reach a hatch. Waternet’s Ricardo Sieben gently opens it – something he has clearly done many times before – and we suddenly find ourselves in the former Schinkelbrug control tower. It feels like stepping back into the 1970s, when the tower had just been opened. The linoleum floor, an outdated kitchen in the corner, the electric heaters on the wall. But this southern tower still offers a spectacular view of the bridges across the Schinkel on the one side and the De Nieuwe Meer with the De Koenen marina on the other side.

It’s a case of enjoying it while it lasts, because the two control towers are soon to be demolished in order to create more space to widen the bridge. In preparation for the demolition work, contractor EQUANS has relocated the operation of the bridges to a temporary control hut in Jaagpad. Sieben coordinates the team that operates the bridge, and regularly did night shifts in the tower until a year ago. But he is still taking the demise of this part of Amsterdam history in his stride. ‘We’re now operating the bridge remotely using cameras. That enables you to see more – you can easily look around corners, see the blind spot and can act more quickly.’ Then, after a short silence: ‘Well, the only thing you miss when operating remotely is the feeling that you belong to the bridge. When you’re standing in the tower, you can smell and feel everything that’s happening around you.’

If we take a look back in history to 1972, when the Schinkelbrug first came into being, it initially only consisted of two bridges for the A10. A railway bridge was added in the late 1970s, followed in the 1990s by a bridge for the metro. A second railway bridge was built in 2015. As a result of the widening of the A10 Zuid, the number of bridges across the Schinkel is soon set to increase from five to eight. Erik Boontjes is Waternet’s nautical consultant and has been involved in these plans from the outset, which are part of the regeneration of the De Nieuwe Meer interchange. ‘The first question was: where can we build a new bridge?’ he explains. ‘Well, building one across the Nieuwe Meersluis was out of the question. Or even across the Nieuwe Meer itself.’ Boontjes points to the south of the control towers. ‘There are so many things involved. Can you see that piled fendering – the poles sticking out of the water that slow down the boats? All of that will need to be moved. As soon as this southern control tower has been demolished, new bridges can be built here. There’ll also be a bridge on the north side – the northern control tower needs to be removed to make way for it.’

The Schinkel complex is part of what is known as the Staande Mastroute, a navigation route through waterways and canals that leads from Zeeland via Amsterdam and the IJsselmeer to Delfzijl in Groningen. ‘Opening bridges involves more than just pressing a button’, laughs Sieben. ‘The bridge only opens at night, because you can’t keep stopping the traffic on this busy part of the A10. There are always two of us on night shifts. Before 23.00, any waiting vessels have to report to us. We then have contact with the coordinator of the railway service and the GVB traffic coordinator. After midnight, we open the bridge and the ships can then pass into the lock.’ But it is not only boats and ships that Sieben and his team see go past. ‘We’ve had just about everything: super yachts, aircraft en route to the Aviodrome, the floating Noah’s Ark Museum and 200 tonnes of gold being shipped from Amsterdam to Haarlem. During the annual Sail event, it’s as busy as it gets: virtually the whole country passes through here.’

As we descend from the tower, we walk towards the new temporary control hut. It’s not exactly the height of comfort: we make our way through the narrow passage under the noisy viaducts with an ice-cold wind in our faces and pigeon droppings sticking to the soles of our shoes. ‘We definitely won’t miss this walk from one tower to the other’, jokes Boontjes, who himself started out as a bridge operator. ‘You have to go backwards and forwards through here several times a night, even in the rain and freezing cold.’ He then opens the door of the temporary control hut next to the Nieuwe Meersluis building. Just six square metres in size and boasting four gigantic screens, the hut is very different from the control tower. ‘The control panels from the tower have been replicated exactly’, points out Boontjes. ‘They’re now alongside each other, instead of being spread across the tower, which is clearly more practical. The order of the bridges on the screens – from west to east, as they are when you look out from the tower – has also been replicated exactly. I’m convinced that remote operation is actually safer than local.’

Technical services specialist EQUANS completed the work involved in moving the controls three months earlier than planned. This clears the way for TriAX, the construction consortium that will be widening the A10 Zuid between the De Nieuwe Meer interchange and the S108 motorway exit. The Schinkelbrug will continue to be operated from a hut until 2028. After that, the remote controls will move to the first floor of the Nieuwe Meersluis building.