Chain shipping on the Havel and Spree
There was a chain boat trip on the Havel and Spree in the province of Brandenburg from 1882 to 1894. Although the flow of the rivers Havel and Spree has always been lower than the flow speed of the great rivers in Germany, a large number of people could be loaded with a chain tug at the same time Barges can be towed inexpensively. On the Havel and the Spree between Pichelsdorf , near the then city of Spandau and the Kronprinzenbrücke, the sub-tree on the edge of what was then Berlin, the Berlin Krahn Society , founded in 1879 by two Englishmen, took overon June 16, 1882 on a chain shipping .
history
On April 14, 1881, an application was made to take over the concession of the Towing Company against return of the deposit - an inefficient, loss-making company that operated cable-car shipping on the Spree and Havel. The company itself was liquidated and its two rope steamers were sold to Rijn Kabelsleepvaart Maatschappij in Rotterdam .
The 1882 by the Berlin transport operators Herrmann brook stone and the British investor Sir Henry Wathley Tyler founded Berlin Krahn Society H. Bach Stein & Co. with headquarters in Berlin, Kronprinzenufer 8, left five steam cranes at Schöneberger Ufer, on the northern harbor and the Humboldthafen build that The aim was to facilitate and accelerate the unloading of the bricks that were needed in large numbers from the barges arriving from Havelland.
With the concession taken over by the Towing Company , chain shipping was to commence on the previous cableway routes by the summer of 1883. However, due to the uneconomical operation of the predecessor company, the responsible ministry reacted suspiciously. The responsible adviser, Privy Councilor Rommel, stated that the royal government would encourage an opaque start-up deal if the agreement between the two companies was confirmed. The provincial government in Potsdam also questioned the soundness of the company, which cited a letter of credit of 20,000 pounds sterling as the source of finance , which Sir Henry Wathley Tyler opened at the Berlin trading company on the Smith, Payne & Smith banking house in London. The competent authorities delayed the granting of the permit. On March 14, 1882, the Berlin Krahn-Gesellschaft H. Bachstein & Co. informed the Minister that the equipment had already been ordered. The concession was finally granted on April 13, 1882. Chain operations began on June 16, 1882.
Hermann Bachstein left the company in mid-1883 and Sir Henry Wathley Tyler was now the sole owner. The company was shortened to Berliner Krahn-Gesellschaft , the management was carried out by William Pasley Tyler as the owner's representative. As early as 1884, the company sold one of the two steamers built in Dresden-Neustadt to the KETTE company , which used it as hall number 3 .
Chain shipping was discontinued in 1894 and the Berlin Krahn company was liquidated in 1906.
The chain
A 22 kilometer long, but only 23 millimeter thick chain began on a pillar of the Kronprinzenbrücke ( 52 ° 31 ′ 18.5 ″ N , 13 ° 22 ′ 32.7 ″ E ) in Berlin and followed the course of the river and its meanders to in the Pichelsdorfer Gemünde ( 52 ° 30 ′ 10.7 ″ N , 13 ° 10 ′ 56.8 ″ E ) at the bottom of the Spree and Havel rivers. So-called capsize shackles were inserted into the chain at intervals of one kilometer so that they could be opened in the event of tow train encounters. In the inland, this special form of shackle was also known as a lock or chain lock . However, this turned out to be very cumbersome and impractical. On this chain, which ran over a winch drum on the deck of the fore and aft sloping hull, powered by a steam engine, the chain tug was pulled forward.
The ships
The Berlin Krahn-Gesellschaft used the 34.26 meter long and 5 meter wide sister ships Havel No. 2 and Havel No. 3 on the Spree to the confluence with the Havel in Spandau. The two chain tugs were built in the Saxon Steamship and Mechanical Engineering Institute in Dresden-Neustadt. The somewhat smaller chain steamer Havel No. 1 brought the tow trains through the then very low bridges in Spandau. The ship was built in the Sachsenberg Brothers shipyard in Rosslau on the Elbe . In 1890 the company's fleet consisted of 16 steamers, but the majority of them consisted of screw steamers , including tugboats and passenger ships.
Failure and suspension of chain shipping
The chain operation had to struggle with various difficulties from the start. There were problems with the Berlin-Hamburg railway . She asked for the lowering of her telegraph cable that crossed the Spree. With the construction of the Charlottenburg lock , then planned as a double-chamber lock , further problems arose. The water construction officials raised serious concerns about the intention of laying the chain of the Berlin Krahn Society through one of the lock chambers without interruption. The devices developed by Ewald Bellingrath for the gates of the Saale lock in Bernburg have not yet been adequately tested. The durability of the rubber seal of the chain slot in the lock gates was widely questioned. The chain could not therefore be led through the lock chamber, and this interruption was cumbersome and unprofitable.
The towing capacity of the chain steamers could not be fully used because only a maximum of three attached barges were allowed on the Spree. For most of the inland waterway operators, the haulage tariff was too high. They towed their boats. To drive through the bridges in Spandau, they used the cheaper winches that were installed there on anchored pontoons . Of the approximately 11,000 barges that went up the river each year, only about a fifth used the chain steamers. The company then applied to be released from the obligation to approve and revise the tow wage tariff. This was approved in April 1889. Nevertheless, the chain steamers were used less and less. In 1891 only 284, in 1892 only 155 and in 1893 only 30 tow trips were made on the chain. In the summer of 1894, operations were stopped and the last two chain tugs were sold to the Habermann company in Danzig .
backgrounds
The Berliner Krahn-Gesellschaft operated the towing and freight business between Berlin and Hamburg with screw steamers and worked very profitably in this area. Why the company maintained an uneconomical line of business for many years on a route unsuitable for chain shipping seems puzzling. Probably speculative intentions were behind this operation. The company was supported by British capital and Sir Henry Wathley Tyler had been the sole owner since mid-1883. The shares could possibly be introduced on the stock exchange much more easily if the “foreign” company could show a license granted by the Prussian state. So chain shipping on the Havel and Spree was perhaps just a means of raising capital for other branches of the business, and the company had been working towards their termination since the construction of the locks in Charlottenburg began.
literature
- Chain shipping on the Spree and Havel. In: Deutsche Bauzeitung , Volume 16, 1882, No. 51, p. 299.
- Touage sur la Sprée. In: Mémoires de la Société des ingénieurs civils , 38th year 1882, 2nd semestre (2nd semester), p. 266 f. ( online , French)
- Karola Paepke, H.-J. Rook (ed.): Sailors and steamers on the Havel and Spree. Brandenburgisches Verlagshaus, 1993, ISBN 3-89488-032-5 .
- Kurt Groggert: Passenger shipping on the Havel and Spree. (= Berlin contributions to the history of technology and industrial culture , volume 10.) Nicolaische Verlagsbuchhandlung, Berlin 1988, ISBN 3-7759-0153-1 .
- Herbert Stertz: Havel shipping under steam. Verlag MEDIA @ VICE, 2006, ISBN 3-00-019924-1 , page 30, page 78, page 133.
- Sigbert Zesewitz, Helmut Düntzsch, Theodor Grötschel: Chain shipping. VEB Verlag Technik, Berlin 1987, ISBN 3-341-00282-0 .
- Ewald Bellingrath : A life for shipping. Zesewitz, Düntzsch, Grötschel, (= publications of the association for the promotion of the Lauenburger Elbschiffahrtsmuseums eV , volume 4.) Lauenburg 2003. ( OCLC 76646273 )
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Paepke, Rook Segler und Dampfer auf Havel and Spree Brandenburgisches Verlagshaus / ISBN 3894880325 , p. 46
- ↑ a b Shipping calendar for the Elbe area , 15th year 1897, p. 153.
- ↑ Berlin address book for the year 1883. Part 1, p. 63.
- ↑ Sigbert Zesewitz, Helmut Düntzsch, Theodor Grötschel: chain shipping. VEB Verlag Technik, Berlin 1987, ISBN 3-341-00282-0 , page 122.
- ↑ Sigbert Zesewitz, Helmut Düntzsch, Theodor Grötschel: chain shipping. VEB Verlag Technik, Berlin 1987, page 122 f.
- ↑ Kurt Groggert: Personenschiffahrt on Havel and Spree. (= Berlin contributions to the history of technology and industrial culture , volume 10.) Nicolaische Verlagsbuchhandlung, Berlin 1988, ISBN 3-7759-0153-1 , page 102.