Nordhorn connecting canal
The Nordhorn connection canal is part of the Left Ems Canal System (LEK). It connects the Ems-Vechte Canal and the Vechte with the Nordhorn-Almelo Canal , so it represents the connection between the northern and southern parts of the system via a connecting lock. With a length of around 800 meters, the connecting canal is the shortest left-Emsian channels.
history
In 1887, as part of the work on the Left Ems Canal system in the Nordhorn city area, a connecting canal was built to connect the Ems-Vechte Canal or the Vechte to the Nordhorn-Almelo Canal and, in particular, to connect the Nordhorn textile companies to the canal system.
The lock of the connecting canal, which is less than a kilometer long, is the largest in the LEK system with a chamber length of 40 meters. Their size results from the special demands of the Nordhorn textile industry. As the three big companies Povel , Rawe and NINO expanded from the end of the 19th century, so did their energy requirements, which were covered by their own power plants. The coal required for this came from the Ruhr area via the Ems-Vechte Canal . The lock had to take into account the growing size of the barges. Therefore the chamber had to be extended, which can still be seen today. Since the lock in Hanekenfähr is only used for flood protection and is therefore mostly open, it did not have to be extended.
The lock also has a special technical feature: instead of two, it has four gates. One pair at the front and one at the rear is directed against the vertical in the pivoting direction, the other pair against the channel direction. This made the lock usable in any case, regardless of whether the frequently changing water level of the Vechte, for example during floods , was higher than that of the canal (i.e. you had to lock down from the Vechte side ) or whether it was lower (and thus from the Vechte side was smuggled out).
Due to its poor condition, the lock could only be opened in exceptional cases for years until the Nordhorn association Graf-SHIP campaigned for its repair, after which it was partially restored by the NLWKN in 2009 at the expense of the city of Nordhorn and returned to a functional condition. Since then, recreational boaters have been able to sail again from the Ems-Vechte Canal to the Nordhorn-Almelo Canal and the Klukkert Harbor . The lock is operated manually by employees of the municipal building yard. Due to the low clearance height of the lakeside road bridge of only 1.60 meters, there is little boat traffic. This repeatedly leads to silting up of the lock and the canal in the area on the right side.
literature
- Hans-Georg Braun: Rivers and canals - the history of the German waterways . Volume 1. DSV-Verlag, 1998. ISBN 3884122436 . P. 134
Web links
- Lower Saxony State Agency for Water Management, Coastal Protection and Nature Conservation: The Ems-Vechte Canal and the Nordhorn Canal
- Information from the German Traditional Motorboat Association
- Grafschafter Schiffswege and Harbor Repair Project eV
Coordinates: 52 ° 26 ′ 14 " N , 7 ° 4 ′ 45" E