Elbe Lateral Canal

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Confluence route near Artlenburg (looking south)
Confluence with the Elbe (looking north)
Combination barrier gate / bridge B209 near Artlenburg

The Elbe Lateral Canal ( ESK ) is a federal waterway in Lower Saxony between the Mittelland Canal (MLK) and the Elbe . The 115 km long canal leads from Edesbüttel west of Wolfsburg (MLK km 233.65) via Uelzen to Artlenburg in the district of Lüneburg (Elbe km 572.97). The waterways and shipping office Mittellandkanal / Elbe-Seitenkanal is responsible for the administration of the ESK .

history

Elbe side canal during construction in September 1971 near Lüneburg
Elbe side canal in 1971 near Lüneburg with a view of the empty canal

After eight years of construction, the Elbe Lateral Canal was opened on June 15, 1976 by the then Federal Minister of Transport Kurt Gscheidle , the Mayor of the Hanseatic City of Hamburg Hans-Ulrich Klose and the Prime Minister of Lower Saxony Ernst Albrecht . The main purpose of the canal construction was to create a connection between the Elbe and the Mittelland Canal within the Federal Republic of Germany , because the original connection - the Magdeburg waterway intersection - was in the GDR during the division of Germany .

The building was also used to create an obstacle for armored troops in an east-west direction. The canal embankments were created as a barrier for tanks from the east, from the west the embankments to the east can be driven in certain areas. The bridges were or are still partially equipped with explosive shafts , and there were or are tank barriers in the underpasses .

The then federally owned Salzgitter AG and other industrial companies in the Hanover-Braunschweig area benefited economically from the canal . Large amounts of sand were required for the construction of the canal, especially for backfilling the canal embankments up to six meters high . The material was partially removed in channel area, thereby lakes developed, which in many cases to lakes were as Bernsteinsee and Tankumsee .

Since German reunification , the canal has not only been used as a shortcut between the northern Elbe and the western Mittelland Canal, but also on the route between the northern Elbe and the eastern Mittelland Canal when the Elbe is low water between Schnackenburg and Magdeburg .

course

Road bridge between Altenmedingen and Edendorf at km 86

The length of the canal is 115.14 km with water depths of 4–4.5 m and water level widths of 54–70 m. The kilometers begin at the Mittelland Canal. The height difference of 61 m from the dam area of ​​the Elbe above Geesthacht to the apex position is overcome with two ascent structures. The apex posture of the ESK above Uelzen connects to the apex posture of the Mittelland Canal. The canal was mainly built in a trapezoidal cross-section with a water level width of 53 m. Over long stretches, for example near Isenbüttel , the canal runs as a dam stretch, which means that the water level of the canal is higher than the surrounding area. In these areas, the canal is carried over roads, railways and waterways by means of trough bridges .

In the vertex position, berths for shipping and a port in Wittingen have been set up at Osloß , Weißes Moor and Bad Bodenteich . In the middle of the canal between the Uelzen lock and the Scharnebeck elevator, berths were built in Bad Bevensen and Wulfstorf (near Bienenbüttel ) and ports in Uelzen and Lüneburg . There are no moorings or harbors in the lower canal section.

The water supply of the canal for the locks, but also for industry and agriculture as well as for an additional supply of the apex of the Mittelland Canal comes exclusively from the Elbe by means of pumping stations at the two canal levels.

Buildings

Lüneburg ship lift: Canal bridges between the upper outer harbor and the troughs
Lock Uelzen I (right) and II (left)
Lock Uelzen, aerial view (2014)
Security gate at Osloß
Flood barrier near Artlenburg

Lüneburg ship lift

The Lüneburg ship lift in Scharnebeck (km 106.16) is the second largest vertical lift in Europe with a maximum lifting height of 38 m. It is a double boat lift with two independent troughs. Each trough has a length of 105 m and a width of 12 m, protective devices against ship knocks at the trough doors limit the usable length to 100 m. At the time of construction, the standard ship was the so-called Europaschiff with a length of 85 m and a width of 9.5 m. The trough length was sufficient for these ships; today's GMS (large motor ships) of 110 meters in length and the ÜGMS (oversized motor ships ) of 135 meters in length cannot pass the elevator. Push convoys must be decoupled and raised or lowered individually. This assumes that both parts of the pushed convoy are each shorter than 100 m. The additional time required for this compared to the 190 m long Uelzen lock chamber is compensated for by the time saved when lifting and lowering the trough.

Lock group Uelzen (locks I and II)

The lock Uelzen I (km 60.62) overcomes a height difference of 23 meters as a spar shaft lock. It is 185 meters long and twelve meters wide and can therefore be passed by GMS and ÜGMS. The Uelzen lock is a so-called economy lock ; At valley locks, a large part of the water is channeled into three side water-saving basins. This water is released back into the lock chamber during mountain locks. The saving basins reuse around 60% of the water for the next lock. Only approx. 40% of the lock water flows into the lower sewer section. Next to the sluice there is a pumping station with which the used water is pumped back into the upper sewer at night. Due to the increased volume of traffic on the Elbe Lateral Canal and the fact that the Uelzen I lock had been in operation for more than thirty years, the Uelzen II lock was built east of it and opened for shipping in December 2006. With a length of 190 meters and a width of 12.5 meters, the new lock has slightly enlarged dimensions and can also be passed by 185-meter-long push convoys.

Artlenburg high water barrier

The junction below the ship lift is blocked by a gate in Artlenburg at km 114.74 against Elbe flooding at water levels above + 8.0 m.

Security gates

In order to prevent the drainage of an entire sewer line in the event of damage, security gates have been installed in the sewer at Wasbüttel (km 0.97), Osloß (km 9.72), Wieren (km 56.32) and Erbstorf (km 103.72).

Crossings with traffic routes

Eight railway lines, 65 streets and paths are crossed by 55 bridges and 14 underpasses (some for several traffic routes at the same time).

A few kilometers north of the junction of the ESK from the Mittelland Canal, the Lehrte – Berlin railway (as part of the Hanover – Berlin high-speed line) passes under the canal in the 965 m long Elbe Lateral Canal Tunnel , the longest railway tunnel in Northern Germany.

The clearance under bridges and other superstructures on the Elbe Lateral Canal is 5.25 m with normal canal water levels.

Road and river overpass between Bad Bevensen and Uelzen, aerial photo (2014)

Crossings with waters

Eleven rivers and canals, 14 larger receiving waters and twelve ditches are built with two canal bridges over Aller and Ilmenau , 14 culverts (with free water level) and 16 culverts (underpasses under pressure), e.g. B. the Neetzedüker, crossed.

Control ship on the ESK

The Elbe Lateral Canal corresponds to the waterway class Vb, which allows the following ship sizes :

  • Push convoy : length 185 m, width 11.4 m, draft 2.8 m, carrying capacity approx. 3500 t
  • Large motor goods ship (GMS): length 110 m, width 11.4 m, draft 2.8 m, carrying capacity approx. 2100 t (continuous voyage limited to 100 m length due to the Scharnebeck ship lift)

use

Freight ships at Emmendorf- Walmsdorf north of Uelzen

In 2015, inland vessels carrying around 11 million tons of goods were moved at the Lüneburg ship lift and the Uelzen lock. Almost 100,000  TEU were transported.

Total ESK traffic in 2009 decreased by 0.905 million t or 10.4% to 7.819 million t compared to the previous year. As a result, the transport volume fell below 8 million t for the first time since 2005. The share of through traffic in the total traffic on the ESK was 7.35 million t (approx. 94%). In regional traffic (0.49 million t), agricultural products, fertilizers , sand / gravel, coal / coke, metal, ores and chemical products and, since 2009, an increasing number of mineral oil were handled. Regional traffic was handled in 2009 (in descending order of weighting) in the ports of Uelzen, Wittingen and Lüneburg.

The number of containers transported was 70,047 TEU in 2009, a decrease of around 14% compared to 2008 (79,855 TEU). In 2014, container transport rose for the first time to over 80,000 TEU, and in 2015 by a further 20% to almost 100,000 TEU.

Dam break in 1976

Broken canal embankment near Lüneburg, July 1976

On July 18, 1976, a few weeks after the canal opened, a dam broke near Lüneburg. The canal broke at an underpass in the municipality of Adendorf in the Erbstorf district, just south of the Scharnebeck ship lift. Almost four million cubic meters of water flooded around 15 km² of the surrounding area.

The amount of water that had leaked would have been many times higher if the entire section of the canal between the Uelzen lock and the Scharnebeck ship lift had emptied. In the direction of Scharnebeck, a security gate at Erbstorf could be closed - but the amount of water retained was comparatively small, as the canal was interrupted about 2.4 kilometers further north by the ship's lift anyway. The route in the direction of Uelzen, where the next barrier with sheet piling was only available more than 25 kilometers away near Jastorf south of Bad Bevensen, was much more threatening . In order to prevent this section of the canal from running out, an attempt was first made to position a barge across the canal in order to create a first barrier and to slow down the current. After this failed because the ship's tethers broke, heavy armored recovery vehicles of the Bundeswehr drove into the canal instead to calm the current. As a result, after 15 hours, it was finally possible to erect a temporary barrier made of metal parts, sandbags, stones and gravel.

The canal was then repaired and finally opened to traffic in June 1977.

Location of the dam break: 53 ° 15 ′ 40.2 ″  N , 10 ° 29 ′ 7.1 ″  E

Trough bridge of the Elbe side canal over the B 188 near Gifhorn
The Tankumsee near Isenbüttel , created by sand extraction during the canal construction

Cities and municipalities on the Elbe Lateral Canal

From south to north:

Events

Every year a marathon takes place, almost all of which (40 of 42.2 km) are run on the western operating route of the Elbe Lateral Canal. The competition will take place in the Gifhorn district between Stüde (start and finish) and a turning point near Wittingen. The organizer is the Stüde marathon club.

Cycling and walking

The canal has gravel paths on the sides that extend the entire length. You can cycle on them from the Mittelland Canal to the Elbe.

Trivia

The Elbe Lateral Canal is sometimes jokingly called "Heide-Suez". In the early days it was also ridiculed as the "Elbe bankruptcy canal".

literature

  • Karin Brundies / Harald Utecht: Elbe manual . Vol. 3, ESK and ELK (DSV-Verlag), ISBN 3-884123068
  • Ute Spieker: The Elbe Lateral Canal. A new traffic route in the hinterland of the ports of Hamburg and Lübeck . In: Wasserwirtschaft , Issue 10, 1973
  • Waterways and Shipping Directorate Hamburg: The Elbe Lateral Canal . Edited by WSD Hamburg, August 1973
  • Waterways and shipping directorates in the middle and north: Inland shipping between Hamburg and Salzgitter via the Elbe Lateral Canal . Edited by WSD Mitte and Nord, July 1978
  • Horst Büttner / Dierk Schröder: Everything you need to know about the Elbe Lateral Canal . Hans-Christians-Verlag, Hamburg 1976
  • M. Eckholdt (Hrsg.): Rivers and canals - The history of the German waterways . DSV-Verlag, 1998
  • Frank Uekötter : The German Channel. A mythology of the old Federal Republic . Franz Steiner Verlag, Stuttgart 2020, ISBN 978-3-515-12603-8

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Chronicle of the legal status of the Reich waterways / inland waterways of the federal government. (No longer available online.) In: www.wsv.de. Federal Waterways and Shipping Administration, December 15, 2014, archived from the original on July 22, 2016 ; accessed on March 6, 2017 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.wsv.de
  2. ↑ Lengths of the federal waterways. (No longer available online.) In: www.wsv.de. Federal Waterways and Shipping Administration, September 30, 2016, archived from the original on February 22, 2017 ; accessed on March 6, 2017 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.wsv.de
  3. ↑ Lengths (in km) of the main shipping lanes (main routes and certain secondary routes) of the federal inland waterways ( memento of the original from January 21, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , Federal Waterways and Shipping Administration @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.wsv.de
  4. ↑ Uelzen Waterways and Shipping Office
  5. ↑ Detailed description of the surveying office ( memento of the original dated August 30, 2018 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.ivb-vermessung.de
  6. ↑ http://www.eisenbahn-tunnelportale.de/lb/inhalt/tunnelportale/6107.html according to STREDA of the DB
  7. ↑ Eckhard-Herbert Arndt: Container record on the Elbe Lateral Canal . In: Daily port report of January 11, 2016, p. 3
  8. Jump up the dam: The Elbe Lateral Canal runs out. North German history. Norddeutscher Rundfunk , accessed on July 17, 2014 .
  9. ↑ Egbert A. Hoffmann: Trouble with "Heide-Suez" . In: The time . February 22, 1980, ISSN  0044-2070 ( zeit.de [accessed October 18, 2016]).
  10. ↑ Lars Gröning: "Heide Suez" posted record numbers again. In: www.ndr.de. NDR, January 12, 2016, accessed October 18, 2016 .
  11. ^ "Heide-Suez" has existed for 25 years. In: The world. June 12, 2001. Retrieved October 18, 2016 .

Web links

Commons : Elbe-Seitenkanal  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Coordinates: 52 ° 42 ′ 56 ″  N , 10 ° 39 ′ 42 ″  E