Erdberg gasworks

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Erdberg gasworks
Erdberg gasworks
Erdberg gasworks seen from the Danube Canal
Location data
State : Austria
Region : Lower Austria
City : Vienna
Construction data
Construction: 1886
Technical specifications
Height : 12,192 m
Diameter : 60,958 m
Usable volume : 100,600 m³

The Erdberg gasworks was a gasworks of the British Imperial Continental Gas Association and the kk priv. Gas lighting establishment operated by it in Vienna , located in today's 3rd district of Vienna , Landstrasse .

history

On September 14, 1843, the Imperial Continental Gas Association (ICGA), which was founded in London in 1824 and built and operated gas works in several European countries, acquired Erdberg , at that time a suburb of Vienna and from 1850 onwards, part of the 3rd district of Vienna Property on the Danube Canal . The gas company , as the gas works was called on a city map around 1900, was located on the Erdberger Lände on the right bank of the Danube Canal, around today's no.38 (in the 1880s: no.14) and Leonie-Rysanek-Park , about 500 m upriver from today's stadium bridge , where around 1900 the Drorygasse (now a dead end from the Dietrichgasse parallel to the Lände) flowed into the Lände. Later there was a post office that had meanwhile been relocated.

The ICGA applied to the kk Niederösterreichischen Lieutenancy for permission to build a gas works. The decree permitting this and the necessary piping in Erdberg, in the neighboring suburb of Landstrasse and in the suburb of Leopoldstadt on the other bank of the Danube Canal was issued on January 10, 1844. The start of operations took place in 1845/1846; it was the third gas works that ICGA ran in Vienna.

During the revolution of 1848 the gasometer of the gasworks caught fire due to the fighting. Gas production then had to be temporarily suspended. A new gasometer was built in 1851 and another in 1863.

The ICGA had its central office under Director J. Bengough in 1880 at Farmer's Market 8. In 1881 Henry James Drory (1837–1899) was appointed director; In 1883 he moved the company headquarters to the former Palais Epstein on Ringstrasse ( Burgring 13, today Dr.-Karl-Renner-Ring 1), which ICGA had bought in 1876 , where the company remained until 1902. Drory had his official residence there too.

From March 20, 1885, a new triple telescope gasometer was built. The brick outer wall had an outer diameter of 63.41 meters and a height of 35.35 meters above the ground or 44.36 meters above the floor of the water basin. The curtain wall was supported by 40 external pillars, which towered over the wall by 1.6 meters. With the wrought-iron roof structure made in the Witkowitz ironworks , the total height including the lantern was 48.95 meters.

The bell, as the actual gas container, was manufactured by the London-based company C. & W. Walker . The outer diameters were 60.958 meters, 60.196 meters and 59.434 meters with a height of 12.192 meters each. Czeike specifies the capacity as 100,600 cubic meters. At the time of its construction, this gasometer, which was completed in 1886, was the largest of its kind on the European continent. It was only surpassed by a few gas tanks in England and the United States.

Initially, the Erdberg gas works was supplied with the required hard coal from the Praterstern by carts. In October 1885, the Imperial Continental Gas Association applied for permission to establish a rail connection branching off from the Schlachthausbahn . In July 1889, the Ministry of Commerce issued the necessary license with the condition that the so-called Erdberger Schleppbahn be built within a certain period of time, otherwise the license would expire. The operating license for the completed railway line was granted in April 1890.

The Erdberg gas works ceased operations in 1899, as did the Belvedere and Zwischenbrücken-Tabor gas works. The City of Vienna did not renew the lighting contract concluded with the ICGA and opened its own, much larger gas works in the neighboring 11th district, Simmering , in the same year . The Viennese districts 12 to 19 continued to be supplied with its remaining gas works by the Imperial Continental Gas Association for some time.

After the shutdown of the Erdberg gasworks, a legal dispute arose between the municipality of Vienna and the StEG over the dismantling of the tracks that were actually no longer needed, which was only decided by the Administrative Court in 1917.

The Drorygasse near the former gas works has been a reminder of Henry James Drory since around 1900 .

The name of the counting district Erdberger Lände - Altes Gaswerk - reminds of the gasworks as such .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Adolph Lehmann (Ed.): Lehmann's General Housing Anzeiger together with trade and commercial address book for the imperial capital and residence city of Vienna and the surrounding area , A. Hölder, Vienna 1885, Section V: Business Directory , p. 1372 (on the web p. 1430)
  2. ↑ Note: Czeike names in the Historisches Lexikon Wien ( Felix Czeike : Historisches Lexikon Wien. Volume 2: De – Gy. Kremayr & Scheriau, Vienna 1993, ISBN 3-218-00544-2 , pp. 199 and 474–475) 1851 as Year of construction, but mentions elsewhere that the ICGA had a gas tank built in Erdberg in 1851, which is not identical to the construction of the gasworks (but fits the fire in 1848). Since gas was increasingly in demand as lighting energy during this period, it seems unlikely that the ICGA would not have implemented a building project approved by the authorities until seven years later.
  3. ↑ Ing.Henry Drory. District Museum Landstrasse, archived from the original on December 5, 2013 ; accessed on January 5, 2018 .
  4. ^ Website of parliament, section The residents of the palace after the Epstein family

literature

  • Journal of the Austrian Association of Engineers and Architects , Vienna, 1886
  • Robert Medek: 85 years Vienna-Simmering municipal gas works - municipal gas supply since 1899 , Wiener Stadtwerke - gas works
  • Felix Czeike : Historical Lexicon Vienna. Volume 1: A – Da. Kremayr & Scheriau, Vienna 1992, ISBN 3-218-00543-4 .
  • Christine Klusacek, Kurt Stimmer: Erdberg - Dorf in der Stadt , Mohl Verlag, 1992
  • Peter Hasitschka: The Vienna slaughterhouse railway

Web links

Coordinates: 48 ° 12 ′ 1.2 ″  N , 16 ° 24 ′ 19.7 ″  E