Rüdersdorfer waters

The Rüdersdorfer waters (red marks) overlap with the Rüdersdorfer Mühlenfließ (light blue marks) in the southern Barnim

The eleven kilometer long federal waterway from the southern end of the Dämeritzsee to below the Stienitzsee in the state of Brandenburg , for which the Berlin Waterways and Shipping Authority is responsible, is called Rüdersdorfer Gewässer (RüG) . The RüG are designated as waterway class III.

Stretches of water

The Rüdersdorfer waters essentially consist of several river stretches and lakes in the lower reaches of the Rüdersdorfer Mühlenfließ . Shipping and geography currently use different names for the narrow sections.

Names of the river sections
Waterways and Shipping Office Berlin	Land surveying and geographic base information Brandenburg
Gosen Canal (part of the adjoining federal waterway Seddinsee and Gosen Canal (WSG) )
Dämeritzsee
Flakenfließ	Löcknitz (lower reaches)
Flakensee
Woltersdorf lock	Woltersdorf lock
Kalksee
Stolpgraben	Rüdersdorfer Mühlenfließ
Hollow lake
Straussberger Mühlenfließ	Rüdersdorfer Mühlenfließ
Stienitzsee (not part of the federal waterway)
(not part of the federal waterway)	Rüdersdorfer Mühlenfließ (upper course)

Legally, as federal waterways, the RüG still include:

10.6 km of the Löcknitz (Lö), to be precise mainly its tributary Neue Löcknitz with Möllensee , Peetzsee and Werlsee
the 1.3 km long Langerhans Canal (LhK) including Kriensee

The kilometers of the waterway go to the mountain in a north-easterly direction and begin in Dämeritzsee .

km –0.50 south end of Dämeritzsee (confluence with the Gosen Canal)
km 00.00 in the Dämeritzsee
km 01.62 Karl Marx Bridge over the Flaken River
km 02.62 confluence with Löcknitz and Flakensee
km 03.78 Woltersdorf lock
03.82 km bascule bridge Woltersdorf
km 06.84 Stolp Bridge
km 07.80 motorway bridge (Berliner Ring)
km 09.76 junction Langerhanskanal
km 10.48 end of the federal waterway near Tasdorf

history

The Rüdersdorfer Kalkbruch

The beginning of the extraction of limestone in Rüdersdorf in the immediate vicinity of the developing cities on Dahme , Spree and Havel goes back to the time before 1375. In the Country Book of Charles IV. Complain that monks from the monastery Zinna , they included the limestone quarries, wanted to save taxes, not disclose the income from the quarries. A first dam is mentioned around 1550 in Woltersdorf . It is said to have been a weir with a ship passage. The construction of the first chamber lock in Woltersdorf and the canalization of the Kalkgrabens between the Flaken and Kalksee is in the first year great elector mentioned 1640th Until the end of the 19th century, the broken limestone was only transported by ships such as coffee barges . The history of the waters between the Dahme and Rüdersdorf is inextricably linked with the limestone quarries in the vicinity of the place.

"[...] the Rüdersdorfer Kalksteinlager is the only one of importance in the Margraviate of Brandenburg [...], so they supply a large part of the monarchy with this indispensable building material, to which their fortunate location on navigable waters contributes a lot to the relief."

- Heinrich Berghaus : Land book of the Mark Brandenburg. Volumes I – III, Brandenburg 1854/1856

For the year 1847, a removed amount of rock of the equivalent of 216,000 cubic meters was registered at the Woltersdorf lock. In relation to the ships of that time, the Berlin Zillen or the Polte with a load capacity of 30 to a maximum of 50 tons, at least five thousand ship movements to the valley and to the mountain at the Woltersdorf lock must have taken place in the year mentioned .

Bülow tunnel

Expansion of the waterway

From 1850 onwards, the heavily frequented Rüdersdorfer waters were expanded to accommodate ships with greater loading capacity. If the ships were previously sailed, towed and punted, the use of the first tug steamers on the waters increased the volume of the vessels known as barges . After 1865, the canals between the lakes were widened and the Woltersdorf lock was renewed from 1879 to 1882 and some stretches of the lake were also deepened. In order to make the Woltersdorf lock passable for barges with a length of 65 meters, the Plauer Maßkahn , a second lower head was built for the lock in 1893 . It was not until 1957 to 1959 that further construction work was carried out to improve shipping conditions. For the first time, a continuous immersion depth of 1.85 meters could be guaranteed through dredging work. A special feature of the waterway was a shipping tunnel, the Bülow tunnel , near the former I. Rüdersdorf cement works. This was replaced by an 18 meter deep cut in the existing landscape. Three bridges were rebuilt. A major overhaul of the only lock in the waterway took place in 1998.

lock

place	Name of the lock	The fairway kilometer	Data	Open to traffic year of construction	Call channel phone no .	Coordinates
Woltersdorf	Woltersdorf lock	RüG 3.78	L 65.36 m / W 8.60 m / drop height 2.10 m	1640 1893 1998	79	52 ° 26 '33.5 " N , 13 ° 45' 51.9" E52.442633333333 13.764408333333

literature

Hans-J. Uhlemann: Berlin and the Märkische waterways. transpress Verlag, Berlin various years ISBN 3-344-00115-9 .
Writings of the Association for European Inland Shipping and Waterways e. V. various years, Western European shipping and port calendar, inland shipping publisher, Duisburg-Ruhrort.
Folke Stender: Editing of Sportschifffahrtskarten inland 1. Nautical publication Verlagsgesellschaft, ISBN 3-926376-10-4 .
Heinrich Berghaus: Land book of the Mark Brandenburg. Volumes I – III, Brandenburg 1854/1856.
Herbert Stertz: Havel shipping under sail. Publisher MEDIA @ VICE, ISBN 3-00-016065-5 .