It was rebuilt as a multilayer bridge and opened with rail tracks on an upper truss level on 2 January 1879.

An accident on 15 April 1940 caused the fire department to blow away one of the pillars, collapsing the superstructure.

It has an overall length of 247 meters (810 ft),[2] including viaducts on both sides of the bridge proper.

[3] Just east of the bridge the Eastern Østfold Line branches off at the now disused Hafslund Station.

[5] At the start of the 19th century the King's Road through Østfold passed through Hafslund and then continued along the southeastern bank of the river to Fredrikstad.

[7] It was in relation to this that the first demands for a bridge across Glomma was proposed, initially between Buene and Dombergodden.

An argument against this was that the bridge could be damaged if a lock burst further up along Glomma and there came an uncontrolled rush of lumber.

[8] Not until five years later was a detailed design of a bridge made, by Christian Vilhelm Bergh.

[10] The Engineering Brigade protested and wanted the entire bridge between landfalls to be built with a single span.

[11] It was estimated to cost 36,000 Norwegian speciedaler, of which 25,000 was for the bridge and the rest for the auxiliary roads and administration.

The second attempt was made the following winter, with the workers having a three-month window in which the pillars needed to be built high enough that the spring floods would not enclose them.

The town offered the railway the bridge for free on condition that it was rebuilt in a manner which allowed the road traffic to continue.

[15] When the construction of the Østfold Line started, the responsibility for bridges and viaducts was placed at Axel Jacob Petersson.

It was the main railway heading south to Continental Europe and there was a steady demand that the line support faster passenger services and heavier freight trains.

This resulted in a 1910 decision to upgrade all bridges along the line to support a heavier weight norm.

The Norwegian State Railways wanted to build a bridge with double track, but there was not sufficient funding for this.

The railways could in the end not wait longer and decided to build their own bridge and leave the old one free of the charge to the Public Roads Administration.

[19] NSB first considered a stone bridge, but found that the bedrock on the Hafslund side was not stable enough.

The main truss had to be put together on side and then lifted up from the waterfalls, and event that took place on 17 March 1931.

[22] Hafslund Station was established in 1931, with the introduction of multiple units on the Eastern Østfold Line.

The auxiliary road past Tarris was placed on a viaduct leading to the bridge.

On 14 April 1940 a ten-year-old boy had played with some wires he had found on the Grøte Bridge and accidentally blown up one of the pillars.

In response to the incident, Police Chief Hans Olsen the following day ordered the town's engineer office to remove the explosives from the Sarp Bridge.

On the orders of the German occupying authorities, a temporary ferry service was established between Sandesund and Borge using one of the port's vessels.

[26] The lower part of the trusses on the railway bridge were used to make a temporary pathway for pedestrians and bicycles.

[1] The Norwegian National Rail Administration is working on plans to build a new high-speed railway line through Østfold as part of the InterCity Triangle project.