The bridge in Poggio Renatico which crosses the Rhine River and belongs to the railway line between Bologna and Ferrara, consists of a steel deck supported by poorly cohesive masonry abutments and piers, while the foundations and pier caps are made of reinforced concrete. After the Emilia earthquake in 2012 and in conjunction with fluvial erosion below the piers foundations, it was necessary to evaluate the structural capacity in accordance with to the current Italian rules. Although the resistance capacity of the structure was confirmed with regard to the actual loads transiting the structure, the bridge showed the inadequacy towards the loads prescribed in the both the national standard for construction (2008 NTC) and the load models reported in the codes of the Italian railway network company, RFI S.p.A.. The retrofitting design described in this paper, consists of an improvement of the structural capacity for elements such as girder, piers and abutments. The innovative retrofitting solution provides a reinforcement of existing decks by a suspension cables system anchored to steel frames attached to both abutments and piers realizing a sort of cable-stayed bridge. The retrofitting was compatible with the normal scheduled interruptions of the rail traffic thereby reducing the maintenance costs of the railway system. The structural solution consists of a model, which may be easily replicable and adopted for similar cases on the entire rail network.

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