Wedau repair shop

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The repair shop seen from the Wedau Bridge

The Wedau repair shop was a repair shop for the repair of freight cars in Duisburg - Wedau . It was in operation from 1914 to 2004.

history

The Wedau depot was established on the railway site in Wedau in 1878 . The Wedau marshalling yard from 1890 gained central importance as a marshalling yard for freight traffic in the western Ruhr area and on the Rhine, through its expansion in 1912/1913, at the same time passenger traffic was started at Wedau station . For the maintenance and repair of the freight wagons, the repair shop was built from 1911, including a large execution hall, a central workshop, the boiler house, the forge and the administrative, canteen and fire department buildings in the southern head of the site. On January 2, 1914, the repair shop was opened as the "Royal Railway Main Workshop"; it relieved the work in Mülheim-Speldorf, which could now concentrate on repairing locomotives. At the same time as the opening, the "Royal Railway Workshop Office" was formed, headed by the "government master builder of mechanical engineering" Gustav Wagner.

In 1913, a factory settlement was built opposite the entrance on Werkstättenstrasse. The first workers came to Wedau from Speldorf. From the perspective of the factory estate, the factory is symmetrical and representative, with the administration building on one side of the factory gate and the canteen on the other. Behind it at the end of a square is the plant fire brigade with the central clock tower. The other buildings follow the rectangular alignment of the grid.

The wagons processed and examined in the Wedau repair shop were marked "Wd".

During the First World War, wagons of the army were also processed, women and prisoners of war were used when the workforce was reduced. A shoemaker's shop and the factory kitchen were also built.

After the war, the factory was renamed the Wedau State Railroad Repair Works .

Due to the closure of other workshops, a lot of work was relocated to Wedau in the following years and the employees were transferred from Arnsberg, Betzdorf, Langenberg and Oberhausen. In addition to the repair and revision work, the management also took over the supervision of the private works in Duisburg and Essen. The apprentice workshop was enlarged, there was now a carpenter's shop, paint shop, blacksmith shop and various stores.

During the Second World War, the area received numerous bomb hits. The two bunkers on the site date from this time . Many buildings were badly damaged or destroyed, but rebuilt after the war.

In 1957, production expanded to include accessories such as buffers and brake valves. With the closure of the Speldorf repair shop in 1959, more employees came to Wedau. In 1961, this also happened at the Recklinghausen freight car repair shop. The Wedau site was expanded again for the production of large-capacity freight wagons; in the 1960s it had over 2,000 employees.

The restructuring of the railway reduced the work and the number of employees more and more, in 1983 a closure was discussed for the first time, and in 2004 the repair shop was shut down. Since then, the site has been lying fallow, and various ideas for subsequent use have not yet been implemented.

From the plant, the administration building, the bath and dining house at the entrance, as well as the plant fire brigade with the clock tower and the boiler house with chimney are subject to monument protection.

  • entrance

  • Bath and dining house

  • Plant fire department building with clock tower

  • Plant fire brigade

  • Residential building in the neighboring Werkstättenstrasse settlement

Web links

Commons : Improvement factory Wedau  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Coordinates: 51 ° 24 ′ 3.1 ″  N , 6 ° 47 ′ 53.3 ″  E