Chain shipping on the Main
The chain boat trip on the Main was a special type of transport by ship from 1886 to 1936 on the Main . Chain tugs with several towed barges pulled themselves upstream along a chain laid in the river . The technique of chain shipping dissolved the hitherto customary Treidelschifffahrt from where the ships were pulled by horses.
Through the upstream progressive channeling and the required barrages the chain towing operation was made difficult especially by the queues at the locks and the chain got competition from the propeller, their use has been made possible by the greater fairway depth and economically through the use of diesel engines. The labor-intensive chain shipping with steam engines became uneconomical and completely stopped in 1936.
history
The situation before chain shipping
The Main has only a slight gradient. Until the mean water correction in the middle of the 19th century, it was a sluggishly flowing shallow body of water with many loops, bends, islands and often several shallow river arms side by side. In contrast, strong floods, especially in autumn and spring, led to floods, bank breaks and siltation . In summer, on the other hand, the water level in the fairways, which are usually only half a meter deep, fell to a few decimeters and shoals and sandbanks formed.
The ships' trains were hauled up the river by liners. A train consisted of a chain of wooden vehicles with a load capacity of 15 to 30 tons each. They usually began with a Frankensau or a market ship and continued via Schelche , Schlumper and Nachen to the smallest vehicle, the anchor . The towpath often changed the bank in front of the mouths of the tributaries or in front of steep slopes. In such places horses and riders had to cross the fairway or be ferried over. The ships drifted downstream in the current of water. When the wind was favorable, sails were set. The costs of towing the mostly empty or lightly loaded ships were high. Therefore, profit could mostly only be achieved with sufficiently deep fairways and with fully loaded ships going downhill.
From the middle of the 19th century, steamships with paddle steamers were opened on the Main, but could not gain acceptance for several reasons: Firstly, the poor fairways of the Main with low water levels in the summer months hindered the steamships with their relatively large draft , especially those of the Bavarian state promised fairway improvements have not been made to a sufficient extent. Second, the railway, which was built around the same time, was superior to steamships; she drove faster and had shorter distances. The waterway from Mainz to Schweinfurt was 88 percent longer. In addition, the railway was able to pass customs offices without waiting and was not financially burdened by customs duties and taxes. As early as 1858, steam navigation with paddle steamers was therefore stopped again.
The time of chain towing on the Main
After the Main shipping industry lost more and more of its transport capacity to the railways and the use of paddle steamers failed due to the shallow waterway of the Main, the idea of Heino Held, owner of the Mainz forwarding and coal trading company with the name CJH Held & Cie. to save shipping by introducing chain towing shipping. Encouraged by the companies that had just started up on the Elbe, he applied to the authorities of Prussia, Bavaria and Hesse for a corresponding license on February 15, 1871. In 1872 the various countries and cities along the Main founded a committee in Aschaffenburg . The committee was supported by Ewald Bellingrath , who was in charge of the introduction of chain shipping on the Elbe and Neckar. To debate the chain shipping and the channeling of the river Main stood. That the Grand Duchy of Hesse belonging Mainz advocated the chain shipping, because it feared that after a channeling of the River Main, the Rhine ships their goods directly as far as Frankfurt could bring and Mainz so would lose its position as a trading center. Frankfurt, then part of Prussia, wanted to become a Rhine port and only agreed to the chain after the canalization to Frankfurt was completed. The Bavarian state parliament was also an opponent of the chain; he feared competition for the state Bavarian railway and initially only approved the chain as far as Aschaffenburg.
The Hessian stock corporation Mainkette-AG moved the chain in the Main . The chain boats were built in 1886 at the Neckar shipyard in Neckarsulm . The plans for the construction came from the company Gebr. Sachsenberg from Roßlau (Elbe) , which had already gained many years of experience with the construction of chain ships and also supplied all of the machinery for moving the chain to the Neckar. From the Neckar to the Main, the chain ships could be transported directly by water, which would not have been possible from the Elbe. The chain ships pulled themselves and up to ten attached barges and reached a speed of about five kilometers per hour.
On August 7, 1886, the line between Mainz and Aschaffenburg was put into operation. All three chain boats (Mainkette I-III) were in use on this route until October of that year. The Franconian Courier wrote in a review of the beginnings of chain shipping:
“That was the time when one day the 'chain boat' surprised the villages and towns. What a jubilation then! As if an overseas steamer had come up the Rhine and Main! […] Meter by meter, the chain rose from the depths, dripping like an iron snake, rolled over the top, crawled, and suddenly it was there again, ready to disappear into the wet element. And the children and old people stood and were amazed. "
In the years that followed, Mainkette-AG expanded its fleet of ships by three screw steam tugs , which were initially used mainly as feeders in Mainz-Kostheim and Frankfurt, but were then used more and more frequently for towing between Mainz and Frankfurt itself.
In 1892, the Bavarian government reluctantly agreed to multiple applications by Mainkette-AG to extend its chain to Miltenberg , but subject to revocation at any time. However, just two years later the Bavarian government passed a law to set up its own chain shipping company on the Main and in the summer of 1895 had its chain moved to Lohr. In the absence of their own chain tugs, the Mainkette-AG was allowed to operate on this section of the river in return for a chain usage fee. Therefore, from 1895 to 1901, the chain boats of the Hessian Mainkette AG still drove on the Bavarian river sections to Miltenberg or Lohr .
In 1898 the Royal Bavarian Chain Towing Company (KBKS for short) was founded in Würzburg by the Bavarian Kingdom and administered by the Bavarian State Railway. The newly founded state company had the contract to build five chain tractors KBKS No. I to V awarded to the Übigau shipyard near Dresden . The tugs were prefabricated in the shipyard, dismantled, transported by train to Aschaffenburg, riveted together and launched into the water between 1898 and 1900.
For the maintenance of its chain ships, the Bavarian state built an approx. 60 m long shipyard near Schweinheim, below the river kilometer 88.8 between the banks of the Main and what was then the Mainland Railway.
With the use of all new Bavarian chain tugs, however, the Hessian Mainkette-AG had to withdraw from Bavaria. The Königlich Bayerische Kettenschleppschiffahrt-Gesellschaft bought the chain between Aschaffenburg and Miltenberg from Mainkette-AG and extended it in the following years: 1900 to Kitzingen , 1911 to Schweinfurt and 1912 to Bamberg . The chain had thus reached its greatest length of 396 kilometers. In 1910 and 1911 three more chain tractors with the designations KBKS No. VI to VIII prefabricated in Übigau and assembled in Aschaffenburg. From 1912 onwards, eight Bavarian chain tugs were on the way between Aschaffenburg and Bamberg.
The chain boats were mostly only used on the ascent. The situation of chain shipping is described in the Aschaffenburger Zeitung in 1900 as follows:
“In June, the royal Bavarian chain ships carried 430 vehicles with 24,568 t load capacity and 4,706 t cargo uphill in 22 tow trains. Towards the valley they towed 4 vehicles with a load capacity of 467 t and a load of 28 t. The income for this amounted to 8 026 marks, 70 pfennigs. "
After the fall of the Bavarian King Ludwig III. In 1918, the name KBKS (Royal Bavarian Chain Ship) became the first 'K.' deleted for Königlich and about the ship number eight no longer KBKSNoVIII., but only as BKSNoVIII. (Bavarian chain ship number eight). In 1924 the name changed to DRG. KS NrVIII (Deutsche Reichsbahn-Gesellschaft chain ship number eight). After the takeover by the Deutsche Reichsbahn in 1937, the name DR .KS NrVIII. (Deutsche Reichsbahn chain ship number 8) used.
The end of chain shipping
Just as the Frankfurters were initially interested in the canalization of the Main up to their city, the Bavarian state now showed great interest in the Main canalization as far as Aschaffenburg. All goods, in particular the Ruhr coal required to operate the Bavarian State Railways, should be able to be transported there by ship, where it should be stocked, stored and distributed. The state-run Bavarian chain shipping company operating up the Main was not affected by this, but the Mainkette-AG company from Mainz had to bear the consequences . The damming of the river led to greater water depth and at the same time reduced the flow velocity. Above all, the long tow trains at the locks at the barrages had to be split up and locked separately. This could mean a delay of up to five hours, since the barges had to be laboriously pulled into and out of the lock by human power.
All of this shifted profitability from chain shipping to screw-propelled ships. The Mainkette-AG was only able to use its screw tugs economically with the progressive canalisation of the Main as far as Aschaffenburg in 1921 and gave up the tug operation entirely in the early 1930s.
For the Bavarian route, too, the Reichsbahndirektion Nürnberg had to state in 1935: “The volume of traffic in chain towing on the Main decreased extraordinarily in the first half of this year [1935] due to the competition for screw boats, so that operations almost came to a standstill The question of the complete discontinuation of the company must be considered. " The reason given for this was given:
“The screw tugs have to be equipped with the fact that they are considerably cheaper to purchase and operate than the chain boats, despite the higher engine power required. A power screw tug with the same performance as the chain tow ships only requires half the operating team (3 instead of 6). All the capital outlay for the chain and its renewal is eliminated. The screw tugs can also navigate the locks more quickly and easily than the chain boats, and the chain breaks do not occur either. Another economic advantage, which is essential when there is little traffic, is that, as smaller units, they do not have to wait for a large train to come about, so they can serve the traffic more quickly and, furthermore, that they can handle the new traffic task that now arises in the water flowing with much less current also drag downhill so that you can take advantage of the journey downstream. [...] In addition to the tugs, more recently motorized barges have also come up from the Rhine, which means that neither screw tugs nor chain tugs have been needed. "
Another disadvantage of chain towing was the sideways movement of the chain across the river bed, because it could be pulled into the inside of the curve. This means that the chain sometimes dragged larger stones into the fairway or edged stones that were already there. In addition, each time it was lifted, it was not put back exactly where it was before.
The Bavarian chain shipping was completely discontinued in July 1936 and the chain was lifted in 1938. On May 14, 1938, the Fränkische Kurier described the last voyage of a chain ship on the Main:
“The 'Mainkuh' started its last trip to Bamberg in Aschaffenburg. The whole trip will be one farewell; because its chain now leaves the river forever, and everywhere on the Main, not only in the well-known old shipping towns and villages [...], a thousand memories are linked to this Main chain and its 'chain boats'. The Mää-, the Maa-, the Meekuh, as the chain tractor was christened up the Main with a new sound, is known to every child on the Main. Even today. But tomorrow it will be part of the history of shipping on the Main. "
The name Mainkuh
In front of dangerous river points, the chain towing association had priority over other ships. These had to turn and let the tow through. To warn the other ships, the chain ships gave off a loud whistle signal long in advance. Such a signal also sounded before ships were docked or uncoupled. Signals were also given if a towing formation passed the home port of the chain tug or one of the barges. The families of the boatmen knew about the arrival and were able to use small boats, the so-called boats , to deliver provisions , clothing and news. The whining of the chain tugs, which sounded like loud mooing, and the loudly rattling chains - like in a cowshed - commonly led to the name Mainkuh or, depending on the dialect and pronunciation, also to Lower Franconian Määkuh , Meekuh , Frankfurter Maakuh or Meankuh .
technical description
The chain tugs hung along a chain laid in the river bed, which was only fixed in the river at its beginning and end. The seamless chain consisted of 118 mm long and 85 mm wide iron links with a thickness of 26 millimeters. Due to the chain's own weight and its natural entanglement with the river bed alone, a tensile force of around 40,000 Newtons (equivalent to around 4,000 kg) could occur. On the bow and at the stern of the ship were renewals (boom) attached that could be swung in both directions laterally. The chain was brought out of the river bed via the front boom and guided over the deck along the ship's axis to the chain drive in the middle of the ship. Guide rollers ensured that the chain was precisely aligned. From there the chain led across the deck to the boom at the stern and back into the river. The lateral mobility of the boom and the two rudders attached to the front and rear made it possible to put the chain back in the middle of the river even when the river bends.
Eduard Weiß describes the ships in the journal of the Association of German Engineers as follows: “The appearance of the ship is peculiar in that it is highest in the middle and drops too sharply towards the ends, so that the loss of work caused by lifting the drag chain is as possible becomes small. ”This shape is typical of all chain vessels and was optimized for shallow water. The greater the water depth, the lower the efficiency , as more and more energy has to be expended to bring the chain up from the river bed.
- 3D reconstructions of the Bavarian chain tug KBKS No. V
overall view
Bow view with boom
View of the central nave
Rear view with boom
The chain lasted about 10 to 15 years. Due to the abrasive effect of the sand between the chain links, there was then an increasing number of chain breaks. In order to prevent the chain from being fished up from the bottom with the help of search anchors, catching devices in the form of locking hooks were installed on the booms of the ships, which prevented the chain from running off after a broken chain or while the chain was being repaired.
The Hessian chain ships
The three Hessian ships with the designation Mainkette I-III had a length over deck of 49.80 m, and a width at the waterline of 7.05 m. Apart from the chain drive in the form of a drum winch, they had no other independent drive. As a result, these ships had to rely on the chain when traveling uphill and downhill. Ships that met each other had to pass each other with a complicated maneuver . First the chain had to be opened on shackles (called "chain locks"), which were located 400 meters apart in the chain. With the help of an auxiliary chain and rope, the ship going down the valley had to leave the chain and anchor. After the ship traveling against the current had passed, the ship traveling downhill was able to return to the chain with a loss of time of around 45 minutes.
The draft with 20 tons of coal on board was 0.60 meters. The ships were powered by a steam engine with 88 kW (120 hp). Two chimneys arranged side by side were typical of this type of ship . This was due to the fact that the ship had two boilers with one fire each. The coal consumption per hour was 3 quintals (150 kg).
The Bavarian chain ships
The Bavarian chain tow ships with the designations KBKS No.IV were built in Übigau and were 50 meters above deck (corresponding to 46.80 m at the waterline), slightly longer than the ships of the Mainkette-AG. However, the width at the waterline was 6.40 meters (width above deck 7.40 m) less. With a draft of only 0.56 meters, they had a water displacement of 147 cubic meters, which corresponds to their weight in tons. With a drive power of 95 kW (130 PS) supplied by a steam engine, it could pull up to 12 barges.
The Bavarian chain tugs with the designations KBKS No.VI-VIII were slightly longer at the waterline than the previous version at 48.00 meters. The width at the waterline remained unchanged at 6.40 meters. The power of the steam engine in these ships was 80 kW (110 hp). Until 1924, a chain gripper wheel according to Bellingrath was used for power transmission . Then a 2-wheel sprocket was used around which the chain was looped.
A special feature of the Bavarian ships were two water turbines after Gustav Anton Zeuner , forerunners of today's water jet propulsion , with which the ship could be steered and without a chain at a speed of around 14 kilometers per hour to the valley. The additional drive also enabled direction corrections while driving on the chain and made turning maneuvers easier.
The Bavarian chain ships only had a chimney. This could be folded down if necessary. The hull consisted of seven compartments, separated by six watertight bulkheads . The crew consisted of the captain, a helmsman, two sailors, a machinist and two stokers. The bunks and cabins were on the lower deck . The control platform was covered with a cloth cover and a sun / rain sail was stretched over it. Later the steering position was converted into a wheelhouse.
Ship models
A model of a chain tow ship is exhibited together with a piece of the original chain in the Schifffahrts- und Schiffbauuseum Wörth am Main . There is also a 1: 5 scale replica of a double winch that winds and unwinds the chain at the push of a button. A second model of a chain towing ship is in the meeting room of the Wörth town hall and is loaned to other museums and exhibitions if required.
The model of a chain towboat exhibited in the local history museum in Elsenfeld allows the chain to be moved on the model. There is also an original ship's bell from the Royal Bavarian Chain Steamship No. 4 and a piece of the original chain. The museum is only open a few days a year.
The Miltenberg City Museum and Aschaffenburg Castle Museum also have a model of a chain ship. A piece of the original chain can also be seen in Aschaffenburg .
Another model (shipyard model of KBKS No. I on a scale of 1:25) is owned by the DB Museum in Nuremberg. However, this is rarely exhibited here. Since April 2010, the model has been on permanent loan in the guild hall of Aschaffenburg Castle.
There is also the chain ship KBKS No. V as a cardboard model on a scale of 1: 250.
The last chain ships in Germany
The last remnant of a chain ship from the Main could be seen in the former raft port of Aschaffenburg until March 2009. The Määkuh served as a restaurant and jetty until the beginning of the new millennium . Because of her superstructure, she was hardly recognizable as a chain ship. After that it was in the Erlenbach am Main shipyard and has been at the SMA port on the left bank of the Main at Main-km 91 in Aschaffenburg since October 2009 (see illustration). It is cannibalized and no longer buoyant. The associations “Technikdenkmal Määkuh” and “AbaKuZ e. V. “fight in autumn 2009 to save them from being scrapped in order to rebuild them later in their original state. The ship has since been sold. The ship's hull (max. Approx. 1.80 m clear height) is to serve as a café or an exhibition room at a location that has not yet been specified. Due to its dimensions, the ship belongs to the KBKS No. I to V . Because of its historical importance and extraordinary rarity, it was included as a movable monument in Part A - Architectural Monuments - Booklet 71 of the List of Monuments - City of Aschaffenburg.
The last chain ship that can still be recognized as such is the “ Gustav Zeuner ”, which was deployed on the Elbe and is ashore in Magdeburg as a museum ship.
literature
- Otto Berninger: The chain shipping on the Main . In: Mainschiffahrtsnachrichten of the Association for the Promotion of the Shipping and Shipbuilding Museum in Wörth am Main, Bulletin No. 6 of April 1987, 111 pages
- Georg Schanz: Studies on the bay. Waterways . Volume 1: The chain towing on the Main . CC Buchner Verlag, Bamberg 1893 ( online )
- Sigbert Zesewitz, Helmut Düntzsch, Theodor Grötschel: Chain shipping . VEB Verlag Technik, Berlin 1987, ISBN 3-341-00282-0
- Eduard Weiß: The chain tugs of the royal Bavarian chain tug shipping on the upper Main . In: Journal of the Association of German Engineers , Volume 45, 1901, No. 17, pp. 578-584
- Helmut Betz: History of the river: The Main Shipping - From chain towing to articulated association . tape 12 . Verlag Krüpfganz, Duisburg 1996, ISBN 3-924999-13-9 .
Web links
- Last voyage of the Määkuh pushed by a push boat. YouTube
- KBKS No.5 “Määkuh technical monument”. Technical monument “Määkuh” working group, accessed on September 20, 2017 .
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b c d e f g h i j k Sigbert Zesewitz, Helmut Düntzsch, Theodor Grötschel: Kettenschiffahrt . VEB Verlag Technik, Berlin 1987, ISBN 3-341-00282-0 , pp. 142-151
- ↑ a b c d Wolfgang Kirsten: The "Maakuh" - chain shipping on the Main. (PDF; 4.9 MB) In: FITG Journal No. 1-2007. Förderkreis Industrie- und Technikgeschichte e. V., April 2007, pp. 13-20 , accessed on September 20, 2012 .
- ↑ a b c d e f g h Heidemarie Kirchner: Schiffahrts- und Schiffbaumuseum Wörth a. Main . Weltkunst, 1994, ISBN 978-3-921669-12-9 , pp. 66-70
- ↑ a b c d e Otto Berninger: The chain shipping on the Main . In: Mainschiffahrtsnachrichten of the Association for the Promotion of the Shipping and Shipbuilding Museum in Wörth am Main, Bulletin No. 6 of April 1987, 111 pages
- ↑ a b Editor W.St .: The last voyage of the "Mainkuh" , the chain is lifted out of the river. In: Fränkischer Kurier , May 14, 1938
- ↑ Aschaffenburger Zeitung , July 17, 1900 (balance of the chain shipping on the Main)
- ↑ a b Georg Schanz: Studies on the bay. Waterways . Volume 1: The chain towing on the Main . CC Buchner Verlag, Bamberg 1893, Digitalis Library for Economic and Social History Cologne; Retrieved October 29, 2009
- ↑ a b Report from the Reichsbahndirektion Nürnberg of August 7, 1935 to the main administration of the Deutsche Reichsbahn-Gesellschaft (in: Mainschiffahrtsnachrichten , Association for the Promotion of the Shipping and Shipbuilding Museum Wörh am Main (Otto Berninger), Bulletin No. 11, December 1991)
- ↑ L. Franzius, H. Garbe, Ed. Sun: Handbook of Engineering in five volumes . Volume 3: Hydraulic engineering . Wilhelm Engelmann, Leipzig 1900, p. 527, Textarchiv - Internet Archive
- ↑ a b Eduard Weiß: The chain tugs of the royal Bavarian chain tug shipping on the upper Main . In: Journal of the Association of German Engineers , Volume 45, 1901, No. 17, pp. 578-584.
- ↑ Handwritten record by the Sendelbach shipper Heinrich Ebert
- ↑ a b Määkuh: A café on deck, an exhibition in the hull. Retrieved March 30, 2010 .
- ↑ Main residents should go into the Määkuh boat ( Memento from August 3, 2012 in the web archive archive.today )
- ↑ Määkuh e. V. (PDF; 367 kB) Retrieved October 17, 2009 .
