Allgäu (ship)
 Allgäu
|
||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||
The motor ship Allgäu was the first large diesel-powered ship on Lake Constance . The commissioning took place on August 14, 1929. In terms of tonnage , it was the largest passenger ship on the lake until 2008 .
prehistory
Diesel engines were already in use on Lake Constance before the 1920s. First with cargo ships, then with smaller covered motorboats that had been bought from other waters by regional private passenger shipping companies. The Deutsche Reichseisenbahnen put the first three motorboats for 25 to 60 people into service in 1920. In 1925/26 the new Bodan shipyard in Kressbronn first built two smaller motor ships and in 1927/28 the first two medium-sized (300 passengers) motor ships for the Deutsche Reichsbahn: the sister ships Höri / Überlingen and Mainau . The first large motor ship on Lake Constance in 1928 was Austria , designed for 700 passengers ; this corresponds to the passenger capacity of the Graf Zeppelin .
After the steamship Hohentwiel in 1913, no large passenger ship had been put into service for 16 years. In the meantime, the demands on the ships had changed fundamentally: the transport of goods and demand traffic had lost their importance, while the number of passengers on scheduled and special trips had risen sharply due to the increasing tourism in the summer half of the year. This required large new ships for at least 1,000 passengers. The Deutsche Reichsbahn was faced with the fundamental decision between the tried and tested drive with steam engine and paddle wheels or the modern but not yet fully developed diesel drive with twin screws. Extensive series of tests were carried out for this purpose. With two large saloon ships of comparable size with alternative propulsion systems, practical experience was to be gained in use on Lake Constance.
In 1927 the Deutsche Reichsbahn commissioned two new large passenger ships with a capacity of 1,000 people each. The last steamship on Lake Constance, the city of Überlingen , was built for the home port of Constance . In Lindau you already had some experience with diesel engines, so the engine ship was for Lindau Allgäu commissioned. The long preheating time of up to 16 hours until a steamship had reached the necessary operating pressure of 10 to 12 atmospheres and was ready for action ultimately led to the decision to go for large motor ships that, like the Allgäu at the time , were ready for operation within just two hours.
1929-1945
The Allgäu was built as a two-deck ship with a two-screw drive. Due to the unfamiliar drive for the time and the region, the Allgäu was found to be difficult to maneuver and was therefore mainly used for special trips. As early as 1935, she was converted into a three-deck ship, increasing the capacity to 1,500 passengers. Their total displacement of 480 tons increased to a value that was only surpassed on Lake Constance in 2008 by the Sun Queen, which is almost twice as heavy . The Allgäu was before the time of World War II, the flagship of the KdF -Bodensee fleet. Its size and the unusual design on Lake Constance with a cruiser stern and seemingly massive, comfortable superstructures were reminiscent of a smaller ocean liner.
The Allgäu was not used in the Second World War . The main reason for the suspension of the special trips and a radical thinning of the scheduled traffic was a lack of fuel. When Allied forces approached the Lake Constance area in April 1945 , the Nazi leadership ordered the sinking of all ships in Lindau and Bregenz . After secret negotiations between executives of the Deutsche Reichsbahn and the shipping inspection in Romanshorn , the ships affected, including the Allgäu , were transferred to Switzerland in a night-and-fog operation on April 26, 1945 and interned there . On May 17th, the ship was handed over to the French occupation forces and brought back to Lindau, where it was used as accommodation by the French troops.
1945-2002
After the return in 1949, the Allgäu was completely renovated and used again in passenger traffic, initially again mainly for special trips. In 1954 it was converted to Voith-Schneider propulsion , which significantly improved the ship's maneuverability. Since then, the Allgäu has also been used in course traffic. After renovation work on the superstructure in 1973, the ship's capacity was reduced to 1,200 passengers, and in 1981 again to 1,105. The dismantling of the functionless chimney in 1972 was controversial. It was not until 1981 that a dummy chimney gave the ship its "dignified" appearance again.
At the end of 1999, the Allgäu's operating license expired . The modernization required to extend the operating license was not carried out by the operator for cost reasons. That is why the Allgäu had its last mission in 1999 at the fleet parade for the 175th anniversary of Lake Constance shipping. After a year-long berth in the home port of Lindau, the ship was relocated to Friedrichshafen , and at the end of September 2001 to Fußach . The 72-year-old Allgäu was scrapped there until spring 2002. The bow was saved from scrapping by the model shipbuilder Reiner Fügen and set up in his front yard in a district of Lindau. The stern can be viewed since 2011 on the premises of Stadtwerke Konstanz in Staad , in the immediate vicinity of the historic Konstanz ferry .
particularities
For a long time the Allgäu was the only Bodensee motor ship with two machinists, one for each diesel engine. Communication with the captain was like on a steamship: with an engine telegraph and speaking tube . In winter until 1959 a stoker stoked the coal heating.
literature
- Bodensee-Schiffsbetriebe Konstanz (Ed.): 50 Years of MS Allgäu , Konstanz 1979
- Hans-Georg Brunner-Schwer, Karl F. Fritz: From the "Allgäu" to the "Graf Zeppelin". The large passenger ships of the German Lake Constance fleet since 1929 , Labhard Verlag, Konstanz 1997, ISBN 3-926937-36-X
- Klaus von Rudloff, Claud Jeanmaire and others: Schiffahrt auf dem Bodensee, Vol. 3: Beginning of Motorschiffahrt , Verlag Eisenbahn, Villigen AG, 1987, ISBN 3-85649-072-8
- Dietmar Bönke: paddle wheel and impeller. The shipping of the railways on Lake Constance , GeraMond Verlag, Munich 2013, ISBN 978-3-86245-714-4
