Delicias Station at Saragossa is an infrastructure of prime importance on the new Madrid-Barcelona high speed railway. Station construction entailed re-organization of the railway tracks leading into the city and construction of an overpass spanning eight tracks in very close proximity. Many key aspects of the bridge project were governed by construction site-related and geometric, functional, constructional and economic constraints.
But demanding boundary conditions often spur careful and indeed even innovative structural design. Since the successful translation of numerous constraints into a reliable, functional, cost-effective and aesthetically attractive structure is primarily a question of consistent conceptual design, the importance of this step in the design process as a whole cannot be overstated. The ideas underlying the conceptual design for the Salto del Carnero railway bridge, in particular with respect to the specific boundary conditions involved, are explained in the article, along with the actual layout and a few comments on the design of structural details.