Henrichenburg ship lift

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Old ship lift (view from the east)

The old ship Henrichenburg of 1899 and the new 1962 are only a few hundred meters apart and belong to the channel level Henrichenburg the federal waterway Dortmund-Ems Canal in Waltrop -Oberwiese. They are named after the former municipality of Henrichenburg , today the northernmost district of Castrop-Rauxels , which extends from the south to close to the site. The Duisburg-Meiderich Waterways and Shipping Office is responsible .

The old elevator was supplemented in 1914 by a manhole sluice with two five saving basins . Between 1958 and 1962 the new float lift was built, so that in 1969 the old lift was shut down. The old shaft lock was replaced in 1989 by an economy lock with two saving basins. The new lift and the new lock ran in parallel until 2005. Since then, shipping traffic has only flowed through the lock. All four structures are part of the Waltrop lock park .

The old boat lift

The old ship lift was built by Haniel & Lueg according to the plans of the Szczecin shipbuilding engineer Rudolph Haack . It was a key structure of the Dortmund-Ems Canal, because the canal could only be navigated to the Dortmund port once it was completed . This elevator is the largest and most spectacular structure of the first construction period of the Dortmund-Ems Canal. It was put into operation together with the Dortmund-Ems Canal on August 11, 1899 in the presence of Kaiser Wilhelm II .

  • Old ship lift (view from the west)

  • Lock park from the air

  • Old ship lift, postcard from 1912

  • Nightly impressions during the extra shift 2003

technology

The lifting works was able to lift the normal Dortmund-Ems-Canal barge of 67 m length, 8.2 m width and 2 m draft by 14 m to the dewatering of the Dortmund harbor. At the end of the 1950s, the underwater was raised by 50 cm, reducing the height of fall to 13.50 m. A complete lowering or lifting process, including entry and exit, took about 45 minutes. The actual lowering or lifting process took about 2.5 minutes. That was significantly faster than with the locks that were common at the same time. In addition, the lifting spent hardly any water from the Dortmund attitude whose entire water from the lower attitude by pumps provided needed.

The technically interesting construction managed with a comparatively low drive power to lift the 3100 t heavy water-filled trough. The solution lay in the buoyancy of a total of five floats (hollow cylinders filled with air), which plunged into water-filled shafts 33 m deep. Their buoyancy was just as great as the weight of the trough, which remains the same regardless of the size of the ship, because the ship displaces as much water as it weighs when entering the trough. Thus, a relatively small electric motor with around 110 kW was sufficient to overcome the frictional resistance to set the trough in motion upwards or downwards. The sequence of movements was controlled by four threaded spindles made of steel, over 20 m long and with an outer diameter of 280 mm. The spindles were given a longitudinal bore with an inside diameter of 110 mm in order to detect possible defects in the material and to protect them from freezing with exhaust steam at freezing temperatures.

museum

Museum in the upper water

After the new lift went into operation, the old lift was finally shut down in 1969. Then it fell into disrepair. Demolition was also initially considered. However, the Regional Association of Westphalia-Lippe (LWL) decided in 1979 to use the technical monument as the location of the Westphalian Industrial Museum, today the LWL Industrial Museum. After restoration and reconstruction, the old ship lift has not been restored to its original function, together with its lower outer harbor (underwater) , the upper outer harbor and a piece of canal (upper water) museum. The lower outer harbor is also used as a marina .

The old ship lift is a steel framework construction with five float shafts. The trough and the stone main and lower main towers are accessible. Machines, models and pictures can be seen in the former boiler and machine house. The police and fire-fighting boat Cerberus from 1930 is in the upper outer harbor and the motor freight ship Franz-Christian from 1929 with the exhibition A working life on board is in the hold in the lower outer harbor . On a 400 m long canal section following the upper outer harbor, the museum shows a collection of historical ships that is unique in Europe, including the Fortuna steam tug and the only steam tanker phenol that still exists in Europe . There are also floating equipment, a mooring and loading point for goods ships , a slipway for ship repairs with a historic slewing crane from 1906 and the canal passage with an old folding gate from 1914 and a historic lift bridge from 1897. Changing special exhibitions can be seen in the reconstructed port building.

The ship lift is located on the Dortmund-Ems-Kanal-Route , Emscher-Weg and the route of industrial culture by bike . The old Henrichenburg ship lift is now the central anchor point on the Route of Industrial Culture .

  • Slipway in the upper water

  • Phenol steam tanker

  • Fortuna steam tug

  • Police and fireboat Cerberus under steam

  • Motor cargo ship Franz-Christian

The new elevator

New elevator (2004)

The new elevator was opened in 1962 and has a trough length of 90 m, a width of 12 m and a water depth of 3 m. The usable size is 85 m × 11.40 m × 2.50 m (usable length × usable width × draft). These dimensions enabled the then emerging European ship to pass through.

From a technical point of view, the new hoist has the same construction principle as the old one, but the construction has been simplified. The number of swimmers in 52.5 m deep shafts was reduced to two to compensate for the trough weight from 5000 t and a lower head is no longer necessary because the trough and holding gates are designed as rotating segment gates (they turn downwards). The spindles are located in four separate towers, and there is no connecting lifting mechanism.

The new hoist also soon became too small for the requirements of canal shipping. In 1989, the current savings lock was built right next door with a length of 190 m, 12 m width and a jamb depth of 4 m.

The new elevator was used until December 2005, when it was shut down due to technical problems. A renewed start-up is questionable for cost reasons, especially since the port of Dortmund no longer has the freight volume of earlier days. However, if - as in the spring of 2006 - there are problems or maintenance work on the modern lock, the port of Dortmund can no longer be called.

In order to “fight” for the preservation of the elevator, a support association has meanwhile been founded. He not only wants to keep the lift as a structure, but also in an operational condition.

Since December 5, 2005, the new elevator has been registered as a monument in Part A of the list of monuments of the city of Waltrop.

See also

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ LWL-Industriemuseum: Current and past special exhibitions in the Henrichenburg ship lift. Retrieved October 30, 2014 .

literature

  • Eckhard Schinkel: Ship lifts in Germany. Münster 1991, ISBN 3-921980-37-2 .
  • E. Junker: The construction of the new elevator near Henrichenburg. In: Wasser- und Schiffahrtsdirektion Münster (Hrsg.): To release the fully developed Dortmund-Ems Canal on April 2, 1959. Münster 1959, DNB 451354028 .
  • WR Krabbe: Work situation and social situation of the workers during the construction of the Dortmund-Ems Canal. In: Landschaftsverband Westfalen-Lippe (Ed.): The Henrichenburg ship lift. Regional Association of Westphalia-Lippe. Hagen 1985.
  • HF Schierk: Design and construction of the multi-float lift near Henrichenburg. In: Landschaftsverband Westfalen-Lippe (Ed.): The Henrichenburg ship lift. Regional Association of Westphalia-Lippe. Hagen 1985.
  • M. Eckoldt (Hrsg.): Rivers and canals, The history of the German waterways. DSV-Verlag 1998, DNB 954164873 .
  • LWL-Industriemuseum (Hrsg.): Museum guide: Schiffshebewerk Henrichenburg. Essen 2011, ISBN 978-3-89861-131-2 .
  • Herbert Niewerth: The Henrichenburg ship lift in Waltrop - the most important individual structure on the Dortmund-Ems Canal. In: Michael Braun u. a. (Ed.): The Waltrop Lock Park. Waltrop 2010, ISBN 978-3-936083-18-7 .
  • Description of the ship lift near Henrichenburg on the Dortmund-Ems Canal. Dortmund 1897. ( digitized version )

Web links

Commons : Schleusenpark Waltrop  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Coordinates: 51 ° 37 ′ 8 ″  N , 7 ° 20 ′ 1.1 ″  E