DB Oberbaustoffe Witten plant

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Oberbaustoffe plant in Witten

logo
legal form DB Netz AG
founding 1863
Seat Witten
management Holger Schwarz
Number of employees about 500
Branch Manufacture of railway switches
Website fahrweg.dbnetze.com
As of June 10, 2013

Turnout assembly hall and forecourt of the plant

The track materials Witten work or Weichenwerk Witten is a factory of DB Netz for the production of railway switches in North Rhine-Westphalia Witten .

Since 1965, the company has been the only production facility for switches operated by the Deutsche Bundesbahn (until 1994) and Deutsche Bahn (from 1994) in Germany and is now the company's only production facility in Germany. The plant produces two thirds of the new switches installed by DB Netz every year.

activity

Around 1200 turnouts and 100 crossings and crossings are manufactured annually . It covers around two thirds of the need for new points in the Deutsche Bahn rail network. In addition, more than 16,000 large turnout parts such as frogs and tongues , insulating joints and rail extensions for length compensation of rails are manufactured. The company employs almost 500 people, including around 390 at the main plant in Witten. (2009: 355 employees) Production takes place in a three-shift system five days a week; individual production systems are in operation around the clock, every day.

The company has the design data of all switches installed in the Deutsche Bahn network. About 300 different types of turnouts are manufactured. However, the spare parts for special switch designs of the Deutsche Reichsbahn are supplied by a private company. An emergency team standing by around the clock can deliver switches at short notice by truck .

The plant includes warehouses in Königsborn and Duisburg , the manufacture of bridge beams in Nuremberg and the sleeper factory in Schwandorf for the manufacture of turnout sleepers . Around 60,000 wooden turnout sleepers are manufactured here every year. Since 2018, additional turnouts have been manufactured in Schwerte for a few years due to an increased demand for turnouts .

history

Building of the former training workshop, originally Centralmagazin , until the demolition in 2015 the only remaining building of the plant from 1863
Workshop plan 1866

The plant was founded in 1863 as the central workshop of the Bergisch-Märkische Eisenbahn zu Witten and was the fifth workshop of the BME. The factory initially repaired cars and locomotives and built signal boxes and signaling equipment as well as switches and other superstructure elements . Since the capacity already proved to be too low in 1865, several new workshops were built on the factory premises by 1969. Three small locomotives were purchased for transport on the factory premises, one of which exploded in 1872. In 1873, an open wagon repair workshop ("long Heinich") and a new switch forge were built. A plant fire brigade was founded in 1880 . For reasons of space, the main line from Witten to Dortmund was run by the BME from 1885 until the new Witten main station was built and the line was relocated through the factory premises in 1901.

In 1882 the Royal Railway Directorate Elberfeld took over the Bergisch-Märkische Eisenbahn-Gesellschaft. In 1895 the plant gave up the production of interlockings and signaling devices in favor of frogs and wheel guides. For the steel sleepers customary at the time, a modern sleeper punching shop and later an administration building , a tender workshop and a new wagon hall were built.

After the outbreak of World War I , the need for locomotives and freight cars for transporting troops and horses increased. Recruited factory workers were replaced by women and prisoners of war to keep the company going. Until the end of the war, the workforce remained almost constant at around 2300 employees.

The Deutsche Reichsbahn , founded in 1920, took over the state railways of the federal states and thus also the main workshop in Witten. The previous three independent workshops were to be united under a works director to form a Reichsbahn repair shop. During the occupation of the Ruhr in 1923, the site was occupied by a 30-strong French unit, which is why the merger could only be completed a year later. Between 1925 and 1928 the Witten works had to hand over the locomotive and wagon repairs to more efficient works. In 1930, the Witten plant specialized in switches, with an attached equipment and sign workshop.

Turnout assembly hall, built 1937–1942

The locomotive repair halls, which were unsuitable for turnout construction, were replaced between 1937 and 1942 by the turnout assembly hall that still exists today. In the era of National Socialism , the work continued as many businesses in Witten forced laborers / inner one. In an air raid in March 1945, the turnout hall was badly damaged. Regular production was only possible again at the end of the 1940s.

Switch tongue planing machine "Neue Coburger" from 1974

In 1947, turnout production at the Hanover-Leinhausen repair shop was relocated to Witten. In 1951 the plant was renamed the Bundesbahn repair shop in Witten . In 1959 it reached 7038 switch units with around 1090 employees, the highest number of switch units manufactured to date. With the abandonment of switch production in the Munich-Neuaubing repair shop in 1965, the Witten plant became the only switch factory of the Deutsche Bundesbahn. In 1974 the DB's most expensive machine tool to date, the “Neue Coburger” switch tongue planer, was put into operation. In 1967 the plant took over the turnout warehouse, which had previously been managed independently. In 1979, the refurbishment of the small containers was stopped, in 1982 the forge and the brake shoe refurbishment. The first CNC machine was put into operation in 1981. Due to the declining number of turnouts, the first turnout straightening hall, the social building and the former administration building were sold in the early 1990s.

In 1994, with the founding of Deutsche Bahn AG, the Witten switch factory, the Schwandorf sleeper factory (with 58 employees) and the Nuremberg rail welding factory were combined to form the Oberbaustoffe Witten plant . The plant has belonged to DB Netz AG since 2000, and the Nuremberg rail welding plant was sold. Since then, the Oberbaustoffe plant in Witten and the Signalwerk Wuppertal have been cooperating in training apprentices. The practical part of the training takes place in Witten. In 2002, the first of three computerized numerical control -controlled portal milling machines was purchased, and in 2005 an electron beam welding system . From 2004 to 2007 a new warehouse for large turnout parts for high-speed lines was built ( HGV hall ). A new portal milling machine was put into operation in 2011 to machine the new, less-wearing bainite steel .

On the morning of July 23, 2015, welding work on the roof of the points straightening hall triggered a major fire . Over 400 firefighters were on duty. Part of the turnout hall was destroyed, but the machines survived the fire. A large part of the point straightening hall was demolished after the fire and production was relocated to another hall on the site. Despite the fire, 160 points could be delivered from Witten for the Berlin-Munich high-speed line, which opened in December 2017, as production could initially continue in the destroyed hall.

In-house developments

Witten were folding soft and manufacture of frogs from bainite developed.

literature

  • The Witten turnout factory from 1863 to 2013 . In: Oberbaustoffe plant in Witten (ed.): 150 years of Oberbaustoffe plant in Witten. With tradition into the future . Witten 2013, p. 11-13 .
  • Hardy Priester: The central workshop of the Bergisch-Märkische Eisenbahn in Witten between 1863 and 1873 under the founder Moritz Stambke and the builder August Orth . In: VOHM (Hrsg.): Märkisches Jahrbuch für Geschichte . tape 111 . Witten 2011.
  • Werner Menninhaus, Günter Krause, Manfred van Kampen: Bergisch-Märkische Eisenbahn (1843–1881). Witten repair shop . Uhle and Kleimann Verlag, Lübbecke 1991, ISBN 3-922657-76-1 .
  • Festschrift for the celebration of the 50th anniversary of the Royal Railway Main Workshop in Witten on June 13, 1913. 1863–1913 . Krüger, Witten 1913.
  • Moritz Stambke: Central workshop of the Bergisch-Märkische Eisenbahn zu Witten . In: Organ for the Progress of the Railway System . 1866, p. 109 ff .
  • Recipe for success. High tech, sweat and muscles . In: DB World . March 2008, p. 3 .
  • Switch works with a very eventful history . In: DB World . March 2008, p. 3 .
  • Switches from Witten . In: railway magazine . No. 11 , 2012, p. 34-38 .

Web links

Commons : Weichenwerk Witten  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Description of this sight on the route of industrial culturehttp: //vorlage.rik.test/~15~11538

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Susanne Linka: Birthday. Weichenwerk looks back on 150 eventful years. RN , May 31, 2013, accessed April 3, 2017 .
  2. ↑ a b c d e f Weichenwerk looks to the future for the anniversary . In: DB Netz (Ed.): NetzNachrichten . No. 2 , 2013, p. 7 ( online, PDF ( memento of November 25, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) [accessed on January 29, 2017]). Weichenwerk looks to the future for the anniversary ( memento of the original from November 25, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.db-netz.de
  3. ↑ number of courses . In: mobile . No. 8 , 2013, ISSN  0949-586X , ZDB -ID 1221702-5 , p. 30 .
  4. ↑ Lots of irons in the fire . In: mobile . March 2009, p. 48 f .
  5. ↑ https://www.ruhrnachrichten.de/Staedte/Schwerte/Bei-Eisenbahnschwellen-ist-noch-Handarbeit-gefragt-1289033.html
  6. ↑ Stefan Rebein: On the trail of forced labor. WAZ , September 23, 2012, accessed December 1, 2016 .
  7. ↑ Jasmin Kleemann, Barbara Zabka: Huge cloud of smoke in Witten. Major fire in the railway switch factory. WAZ , July 23, 2015, accessed December 1, 2016 .
  8. ↑ Johannes Kopps: cause of fire. Welding work triggered a major fire in the switch factory in Witten. WAZ , July 29, 2015, accessed December 1, 2016 .
  9. ↑ Switchwork. Mayor of Witten thanks all helpers after a major fire. WAZ , August 25, 2015, accessed December 1, 2016 .
  10. ↑ fire. Switch hall is demolished after a major fire in Witten. WAZ , August 3, 2015, accessed December 1, 2016 .
  11. ↑ Witten switch factory. Start of production this week. Eurailpress, August 6, 2015, accessed April 3, 2017 .
  12. ↑ Markus Balser: "Nice and fast, but not long enough", in Süddeutsche Zeitung No. 282, Friday, December 8, 2017, page 17

Coordinates: 51 ° 26 ′ 38.8 "  N , 7 ° 19 ′ 36.8"  E