Bonner Personen Schiffahrt
The Bonner Personen Schiffahrt eG (short: BPS ) is a Bonn shipping company.
history
Beginnings
The passenger transport of Bonn boatmen can be traced back to the beginning of the 20th century. At that time, passengers were still sometimes carried by barge . As a result, steamships replaced the gasoline-powered small motorboats. It has been on record since 1911 that individual ship owners set up a common timetable and drove according to a uniform tariff. Due to the events of the First World War , however, it was not until 1929 that the local ship owners merged into a cooperative. BPS was founded, initially as BONNER MOTORSCHIFFAHRT eGmbH , when it was entered in the cooperative register on April 25, 1929 under registration number: 325a.
Bonner Motorschiffahrt eGmbH
On the initiative of Mr. Josef Schmitz sen. Mr. Josef Schmitz senior, Jakob Krahe, Peter Hei, Jean Richarz, Karl buyer, Josef Schmitz jun. and Clemens Schmitz to form a car pool under the company Bonner Motorschiffahrt eGmbH . The company was founded in 1929 in the Roaring Twenties . A brisk new construction activity led the passenger shipping from the beginning. However, there were still problems with the technology, as the following anecdote shows:
Heinrich Streng, captain of the ship “Filia Rheni” (I), had to bring a company to Koblenz . Before each voyage, he spent half the night getting the engine afloat again - the ship was equipped with one of the first high- speed diesel engines, which were called “hell engines ” in skipper's jargon and were characterized by a high need for repairs. In order to contribute to the success of the day trips leading from the Bonn area, the entire ship's crew attended the first early mass in the collegiate church to, as it were, ask for God's blessing. The ship's crew was also increased by one man. - Even today, a ritual is part of inland navigation before starting a voyage: three groups of bells are rung, which means “In God's name”.
Outbreak of the Second World War
The war brought an abrupt end to passenger shipping and most of the shareholders had to go to war. Initially, excursion traffic could only be maintained with the older inland waterway operators, but this came to a standstill in 1942 at the latest due to the constant air raids. Those ships that were not used for war purposes or sunk in the hail of bombs were deliberately flooded and destroyed by the retreating German troops. In 1945 all ships and operating facilities were unusable and some were destroyed. The shareholders returning from captivity, however, had the will to rebuild.
Reconstruction of the fleet after the war
The salvage of the sunk ships began immediately after the war. Under the most difficult conditions - there were practically no lifting vehicles, shipyards and engine factories (plants) were destroyed or dismantled - the small ships "Eva Maria", "Beethoven", "Rheinland" and "Roland" were first repaired and put into service. The "MS Bonna" was released by the Belgian occupation forces. For a short time, some ships were used as ferries in Cologne and Bonn in order to cope with passenger traffic because of the destroyed Rhine bridges. As early as 1949, the first new building was launched from the former Oberkassel shipyard : “MS Martha”. This 180-person ship was still riveted, but its construction indicates a new development: MS Martha had a sundeck that was something extraordinary in terms of its size. In the following years up to 1954 the larger ships “Verona”, “Brunhilde”, “Stadt Bonn” and “Filia Rheni” were already completely modernized and used.
Municipal modes of transport are pushing the water
Passenger shipping, which was barely rebuilt as a result of the war, entered public interest in 1955. According to press reports, the municipal electric railways intend to use their own passenger boats on the Bonn - Bad Honnef route . Ultimately, however, it is decided to leave this branch of business to the private sector. In a daily newspaper in Bonn there is a photo montage of an electric rail car that glides across the Rhine between Bonn and Königswinter under April 1, 1955 - glossed as an April Fool's joke. The BPS fleet now has 12 ships between 150 and 500 people with a total capacity of 3522 people.
Expansion of the fleet
The development from a petrol engine boat for 20 people to a passenger ship for 600 people testifies to the expansion of the family company, which is now in its fourth generation. In the post-war period in particular, there was a lot of construction activity. Since 1960, a type of ship with spacious salons and sun decks has been developed. At the same time, attention was paid to the expansion of an efficient restaurant. In 1976 and 1979 the ship in the shape of a whale, namely Moby Dick and the River Lady, a ship in the Mississippi steamer design, broke new ground. Since 1949, nine major renovations have been carried out and fourteen new buildings have been put into service.
This construction activity led to the fact that the following passenger ships are used today under the flag of the BPS.
- Rhine princess
- Moby Dick
- Filia Rheni (II)
- Poseidon
The Filia Rheni catamaran was built in 1989 in Mondorf in the Lux shipyard and was the first passenger catamaran on the Rhine. BPS has been a member of the Weisse Flotte Rhein (WFR) association since 2002.
All BPS ships have been using the environmentally friendly synthetic diesel engine fuel GtL-Fuel from Shell since April 2018 .
Route network
As a regional company, BPS follows a seasonally adjusted schedule in which the destination stations Königswinter , Bad Honnef , Unkel , Remagen , Linz am Rhein , Bad Breisig, Andernach, Koblenz , Winningen, Braubach, Boppard and St. Goarshausen are approached. The stations between Bonn and Linz are served several times a day. The day trips to the Moselle , to Boppard and to the Loreley on certain days of the week have been an integral part of the schedule since the 1950s and are very popular. The evening trip program developed from the romantic moonlight trips around the island of Nonnenwerth to the dance parties, themed trips or cultural highlights in connection with the boat trip on the Rhine. The BPS fleet also offers special trips for clubs, societies and schools to and from all Rhine and Moselle stations on the routes between Duisburg , Mainz and Cochem . This segment is becoming increasingly important.