Cable car trip on the Rhine

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Cable ships in the harbor

Rope shipping , as Tauerei referred was on the Rhine operated in the period 1871-1905. The rope boats pulled themselves and the attached barges upstream by means of a steam-powered winch on a strong steel cable that was laid in the river.

history

Rheintauer near Koblenz to valley, by Max Eyth
Different types of pulleys, middle right: flap drum
Details of the valve drum, a, b, c = valve mechanism, D = wire rope

With the appearance of the first steamers on the Rhine, trips with attached tugs were also undertaken. However, since the power of the steam engines was still too low at that time, these tow trains only achieved low speeds. The chain ships were very successful on the Elbe and in France , and it was considered whether this type of locomotion would also be feasible on the Rhine. However, since there were many more vehicles running on the Rhine and the chain ships were too immobile because the chain ran across the middle of the ship, the rope ships were developed that only had a device on the port side to pick up the rope. The development of the rope ships went back to an invention of the engineer Robert Burton, who had built the so-called flap drum for the steam plow developed by Fowler . The rope was fed to the drum via the front idler wheel, the flaps attached all around closed by the weight of the rope and clamped it tight. After half a turn the flaps opened and the rope was lowered back into the water via the rear idler wheel. The front and rear idler wheels could be swiveled to the side so that the rope could be better guided over the ship. See drawing, indentations in the port hull.

The 42 mm thick rope was only half as heavy as a chain with the same pulling force and operation was also much quieter. So that the rope ships (Tauer) could better maneuver in tight river bends, the ships got a flat bow over which the rope could run to the starboard side. The rope had to be renewed every five years. It also happened that the rope broke while driving and then had to be spliced . At the beginning of the journey, the rope was inserted into the valve drum, which was driven by a steam engine. On the rope, the Tauer pulled itself up to the mountain together with the attached barges. At the end of the trip, the rope was removed from the valve drum and dropped back into the water. The Tau rivers cleared the valley and were driven by two propellers .

The steam engine for driving the wheel system had an output of 130 to 250 hp. This allowed 1250 tons of load, distributed over several attached barges , to be pulled uphill at a speed of around four kilometers per hour. There were several towers along the Rhine. The first ran from Emmerich to Duisburg and was used for test drives from May 1, 1873 to the end of June 1873. During this time, a Tauer hauled a total of 74 ships with a total of 11,713 tons of freight on 15 voyages from Emmerich to Duisburg.

In the spring of 1874, the second section was moved from Duisburg to Cologne. In autumn 1875 the line from Cologne to Oberkassel was completed, and in 1876 the sections Oberkassel - Sankt Goar and Sankt Goar - Bingen. The ropes were supplied by the Cologne company Felten & Guilleaume . On the Emmerich - Oberkassel route, the rope had a diameter of 36 mm, then 42 mm to Bingen. The rope weighed 6.3 kg / m and cost 2,700 marks per meter including laying. On the Lower Rhine, rope work was stopped at the end of 1875, as the rope repeatedly buried itself in the sandy river bed, making operation difficult or at times impossible.

In 1874, four cable boats from Emmerich to Duisburg made 47 tow trips with 229 attachments, from Duisburg to Neuss 22 trips with 111 attachments and from Neuss to Cologne 13 trips with 56 attachments. In addition, two wheeled boats hauled 354 barges on 41 trips between Cologne and Maxau and 64 barges on eight trips on the Lower Rhine. A total of around 96,500 tons of freight were transported. On the Dutch side, shipping was favored by the tidal influence, which at that time made itself felt as far as Nijmegen . Over the years, more and more powerful paddle steamers were developed and shipping on the Rhine increased steadily. Since the rope ships became more and more an obstacle for the free moving ships and were soon only called witches . In 1905, rope shipping was given up and the rope was removed from the Rhine. The witches lay in the port of Sankt Goar for a few years before they were scrapped.

The German engineer Max Eyth , pioneer of the steam plow, played a key role in the introduction of rope navigation.

Technical specifications

Construction drawings of a rope
Steam engine to drive the rope apparatus

Rheintau 1 - 4

  • Length = 39.0 m
  • Width = 7.2 m
  • Draft = 1.03 m
  • Power rope machine = 130 HP
  • Power drive = 2 times 160 HP for the two propellers
  • Flap roller diameter = 2.74 m
  • Diameter of guide rollers = 2.60 m at the front, 2.30 m at the rear
  • Crew = 10 men

Rheintau 5 - 8

  • Length = 45.75 m
  • Width = 7.50 m
  • Draft = 1.0 m
  • Power rope machine = 250 HP
  • Drive power = 2 times 180 HP for the two propellers
  • Flap roller diameter = 3.2 m
  • Diameter of guide rollers = 2.8 m
  • Crew = 10 men

Construction of the ships

The companies Escher Wyss & Co in Zurich and the Sulzer brothers in Winterthur received the order to build the first four rope ships . The machinery and the hull for the first two ships were supplied by Escher Wyss, but they were assembled by Peter Kriens at the Duisburg shipyard . Tau three to six were built at the Ewald Berninghaus shipyard in Duisburg. Numbers seven and eight were built by Gutehoffnungshütte in Ruhrort. A rope cost around 30,000 thalers.

The cable apparatus was driven by a horizontal high-pressure condensation steam engine, the two 1.2 m four-bladed propellers by two standing steam engines. The tubular kettles each had a surface area of ​​45.5 m² and delivered a pressure of seven bar . The engine for the cable apparatus attached to the port side , which weighed fourteen tons, and the boilers were moved from the center to starboard to compensate . The two steam engines for the propellers were installed in the stern . The rudders each had a rudder at the bow and stern , and these could be operated independently of one another. The weight of the ships with ten tons of coal on board was between 172 tons for the smaller ships and 210 tons for the larger ships.

The crew consisted of the captain, two helmsmen, two machinists, two stokers and three sailors. The quarters of the sailors, machinists and stokers were in the foredeck, the captain and the helmsmen lived in the aft. In addition to a magazine room, there was also the galley.

The rope

Location of the rope in Neuwied, continuous line

The first rope for the route from Emmerich to Duisburg with a length of 24 miles and a thickness of 36 mm was ordered from Felten & Guilleaume on April 3, 1872 and delivered in sections of twice six and once twelve miles within 18 months. The rope consisted of six cardels twisted around a hemp core , each made from seven 4 mm thick wires. One kilometer of rope weighed around five tons. A 42 mm thick rope was laid from Oberkassel to Bingen. Its core was provided with a tarred hemp layer to prevent the ingress of mud.

Fuel consumption

Compared to free-moving tow trains, the advantage in consumption was clearly with the Tauern. A rope tow with five barges loaded with 1,250 tons consumed 206.5 kg of coal per hour. A paddle steamer with the same trailer load required 932 kg of coal. The Tauer had 145 hp compared to 803 hp of the paddle steamer.

literature

Web links

Wikisource: Tauerei  - Sources and full texts