Rauendahler sliding path

Rauendahler sliding path
Approximate course of the route to the bank of the Ruhr
Route length:	1.6 km
Top speed:	Walking speed km / h

The Rauendahler Schiebeweg near Hattingen south of Bochum was built in 1787 in the Ruhr area as the first of a series of horse-powered coal routes based on the British model at the time ( English route ) for the transport of the extracted hard coal to the reloading point on the Ruhr . The name was taken from the pushing trolleys . As was customary at that time, the rails were made of wooden planks, from 1794 they were nailed with cast iron plates to reduce wear. Due to the construction of the railway operated with iron-clad rails, the Rauendahler Schiebeweg is one of the first railways in the German-speaking area, its length was around 1,600 meters.

The Gutehoffnungshütte in Sterkrade (until the establishment of a "mayor" Oberhausen should still take 65 years) built specifically for the new rail order an annealing furnace. The rail pads were delivered in ships across the Ruhr to Baak zum Kohlenniederlage ; it was only recently that it was completely navigable, before the coal crumbled every time it was reloaded from one barge to another. On the way downstream, the Prussian coal passed five small states and thus also customs borders before it arrived again in the Duchy of Kleve, which is also Prussian: the County of Mark, the Essen and Werden monasteries, the Duchy of Berg and the Dominion of Broich.

The rails manufactured by the ironworks "Gute Hoffnung" in Sterkrade were 1.88 meters long and had a rectangular profile of 5.4 by 2.7 cm (width by height). They were laid on the route with a maximum gradient of six degrees.

history

Replica of one of the vehicles of the Rauendahler Schiebeweges

The history of making the Ruhr navigable by the Prussian state, because this was the only way to avoid the repeated reloading of coal. Consumers demanded lump coal and therefore it was necessary to handle the coal as little as possible:
1780: The construction of numerous locks made the Ruhr navigable as a coal transport route from the Rhine to Fröndenberg- Langschede .
1781: Construction of the Rauendahl coal mine for the Baaker pits.
1787: Establishment of the first rail-bound transport system, the approximately 1.6 km long Rauendahler Schiebeweg.
1827: The horse-drawn railway from the Baaker Gruben is extended to the Ruhrhafen north of Haus Weile , construction of the "Weiler Kohlenniederlage".

The factory commissioner for the county of Mark and Bergrat Friedrich August Alexander Eversmann, based in Hagen, was in charge of the implementation. He got to know such railways on a trip through England. The individual wagons loaded with hard coal ran from the tunnel mouth holes and shafts of the collieries involved to the loading point, a coal depot on the Ruhr bank near today's Rauendahlstrasse (at today's waterworks on the Bochum-Hattingen city limits, here is also the replica of the transport wagon). There the coal could be loaded onto Ruhr ships , the Aaken . In 1794, the constantly damaged wooden planks were covered with cast iron pads on the top to reduce wear, and these were fastened with nails.

The Rauendahler Schiebeweg connected the Baaker pits with the Ruhr river. The coal mined by the small mines Nöckersbank and Anna Catharina , Dickebücherbank, Johann Friedrich and St. Matthias was transported by train. The route ran steeply down from the pits to the river. Due to the difference in height on the journey of the train, there was no need for an additional drive machine; instead, each car had a brakeman who regulated the car's speed by means of a large lever brake. The empty wagons were then pulled back uphill by horses to the tunnels or shafts.

In 1793 another sliding route was built, this time for the tunnel No. 5 / Zeche General , which was operated as the Generaler Kohlenbahn from 1805 .

When the coal reserves were exhausted, the operation of the Rauendahler sliding path was also discontinued. Today only a reconstructed car and an inconspicuous ledge in the steeply sloping terrain on the north bank of the Ruhr reminds of the railway. It was copied from English models and does not entirely correspond to the cars used, as these were equipped with two brake levers. It is also unclear whether complete iron wheels have already been used. The simple coal deposition located at the exit of the Rauendahl in 1781 became an important transshipment point for the Baaker collieries. The extracted coal could be temporarily stored here until it was taken over to the Aaken. With the Rauendahler (horse) railway, the first "German railway" ended at this place. In 1803 the mooring, which had been kept simple until then, was converted into a port (own port basin located northeast of the river), the port was protected against flooding by a wall. This prevented the stored coal from being washed away. The ships could be loaded through three gates. In 1847 the port was rebuilt again, and now ships were also protected against floods. With the rise of the railway, the Ruhr shipping lost its importance and with the cessation of traffic on the Ruhr in 1878, the port and coal depot were shut down. When the Ruhr was straightened out in 1882, the harbor basin and the wall that had been preserved until then were torn down, so today nothing is left of the facilities. In contrast, the area of the original coal deposit is still clearly visible.

The existing railway in Rauendahl was extended in 1827 to the hamlet of Kohleniederlage so that the Baaker pits, which until then had transported all their coal over the Ruhr, were independent of the imponderables of the Ruhr water level. This enabled the coal to be transported overland from the hamlet of Kohleniederlage to the Bergisches Land. The railway built by Julius Phillip Heintzmann was financed by transport fees that the mines had to pay. 25 carriages of 400 kg each ran on the railway; its horizontal course was one of the most profitable horse-drawn trams. Just like the Rauendahler Bahn, it lost its importance in the second half of the 19th century and its operation was discontinued.

The Rauendahler Schiebeweg should not be confused with the Baaker Bahn, which was later built for the Baaker Mulde colliery , about 500 meters to the west and ended at the same coal deposition as the Rauendahler Bahn on the Ruhr.

In the literature, the Rauendahler Schiebeweg is sometimes also referred to as the Rauendahler Kohlenweg or the Rauendahler Bahn . These names are correct, because a pushing path was used to transport the coal from the colliery or mine until it was defeated with wheelbarrows on which the coal was moved by hand in transport containers by tugs. Some of these paths were specially created in order to reduce the inclines to be overcome and thereby optimize the effectiveness of the transport. This cumbersome, ineffective transport to the Ruhr increasingly hampered the further expansion of collieries, so that from 1785 thought was given to the laying of dog rods (rails) outside the shafts or pits.

In the Ruhr valley, there was a very early network of different transport routes for the coal from the mines to the respective defeat on the Ruhr. The oldest was in the Rauendahler Siepen (small valley). At first there were simple ways for wheelbarrows (some with boards covering) or for the transport of horses as mule trains , coal roads , tramways , and later with proper locomotives busy railways .
The early systems involved in Bochum-Stiepel :

stollen	Installation	Max. Length (m)	Type
Rauendahl
Old man	1834		Sliding path
Carl Friedrich	1828	1,580	Horse tram
Carl Wilhelm	1844	522	Sliding path
Friedrich (with CFE)	1834		Horse tram
Prussian scepter	1780		Sliding path
Ignatius (with fidelity)	1835		Horse tram
Lottental
Glücksburg	1825	4.149	Horse tram
Julius Philipp	1839		Sliding path / horse tram

Individual evidence

Web links

51.420277777778 7.1869444444444Coordinates: 51 ° 25 ' N , 7 ° 11' E

[ruhrkohlenrevier.de-1] ttp://www.ruhrkohlenrevier.de/glossar.html

[route-industriekultur.de-2] ttp://www.route-industriekultur.de/themenrouten/11-fruehe-industrialisierung/rauendahler-kohlenweg-deutschlands-erste-eisenbahn.html

[3] ttp://www.derwesten.de/staedte/hattingen/von-stickern-bremsern-und-hunden-id8931633.html#plx738557998

[4] ttps://www.bochum.de/C125708500379A31/vwContentByKey/W277NBQB491BOLDDE

[5] ttps://buegeleisenhaushattingen.wordpress.com/ausstellungen-2013-2015/ausstellung-2015/bergbau/zeitstrahl-bergbau/

[6] ttp://www.derwesten.de/staedte/hattingen/von-stickern-bremsern-und-hunden-id8931633.html#plx1203280657

[7] ttp://www.ruhrkohlenrevier.de/ob5201.html

[8] ttp://www.ruhrkohlenrevier.de/kh1057.html

[9] ttp://www.ruhrkohlenrevier.de/ps8005.html

[10] ttp://www.ruhrkohlenrevier.de/ob3309.html

[11] ttp://www.7grad.org/Exkursionen/NRW/Muttental/Zeche_Constanz/zeche_constanz.html

[12] ttp://www.7grad.org/Exkursionen/NRW/Muttental/Reigerstollen/reigerstollen.html

[13] ttp://www.ruhrzechenaus.de/bochum/bo-prinz-regent.html

[14] Colliery Haarmannsbänker Stollen