Raab Karcher shipping company
The shipping company Raab Karcher GmbH was founded in Duisburg-Ruhrort in 1848 as a subsidiary of the Kaiserslautern- based coal trading company Raab Karcher .
history
Until 1872 the coal was initially transported by rail. After the establishment of a branch in Strasbourg and the expansion of the coal trade to Belgian and Ruhr coal, chartered barges were used for transport. In 1880 the company began to build its own fleet. Due to the expansion of the sales area south of Mannheim , the shipping company needed particularly shallow ships for the Upper Rhine. The first own ships were three paddle steam tugs with 1000 HP each and twelve barges with a load capacity of around 1000 tons each.
In the following years the fleet was enlarged and in 1914 consisted of nine steam tugs and 41 barges with a total of 60,000 tons of loading capacity. After the takeover of the Paul Diesch shipping company in 1927 and further newbuildings, the number of ships increased to 15 steam tugs, 115 barges and 17 motor freight ships by 1937. Due to the effects of the war, many ships were lost until 1945, and the fleet was modernized as early as 1950.
In 1957 the first push boat with 1200 HP went into service, three more boats followed by 1962. The push units were mainly used for transporting ore from Rotterdam to Duisburg. The ship fleet grew to 88 units, four push boats, twelve lighters, two tugs, twelve motor cargo ships and twelve tankers. In 1967 the push fleet and the motor cargo ships with a total load capacity of 50,000 tons were sold to the Thyssen Group . As a result of a recession in the late 1960s, the fleet was reduced by selling and scrapping. After that some new ships were built again. In the 1980s the fleet consisted mainly of tankers. In 1996 the Raab Karcher GmbH shipping company was incorporated into the Stinnes Group . The last paddle steam tug , the Raab Karcher XIV- Oscar Huber, is in Duisburg as a museum ship.
literature
- Heide Ringhand: The inland shipping . Flowing streets - living rivers . Published in cooperation with the Bundesverband der Deutschen Binnenschiffahrt e. V. BeRing Verlag, Velbert-Neviges 1992, ISBN 3-925636-16-1 , pp. 46-48.
- Gerd Schuth: Pictures of shipping - pushing shipping on the Middle Rhine , Sutton Verlag , Erfurt 2012, ISBN 978-3-95400-012-8 , pp. 4, 28, 30–31, 33, 79, 101. ( Google Books )
Web links
- Report on Reederei Raab Karcher GmbH ( Memento from June 26, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) (Extinct names of large Rhine shipping companies II, pp. 6–8; PDF; 2.6 MB)
- House Flags of German Shipping Companies - Raab Karcher (German Shipping Company) ( English )