Trek low
The Treckfahrtstief is a canal built in 1798/99 between Emden and Aurich in East Frisia . The waterway served to better connect the administrative center of Aurich to the seaport city of Emden, which was the most important transshipment port in the region. Parts of the low tide are now integrated into the Ems-Jade Canal , which was built in the late 19th century .
prehistory
A canal connection between the two cities was discussed as early as the 17th century. In 1636 a Dutch engineer carried out the first measurements, but the project ultimately failed because of the costs that neither the East Frisian count house nor the assembly of estates were prepared to bear. The plans were taken up again from 1795, when a noticeable economic upswing became noticeable in East Frisia. Shipping traffic in the port of Emden increased, the number of inhabitants in the city rose by around 1800 in the decade between 1789 and 1799: from 7,943 to 9,799. The project was promoted by both the Emder and the Aurich tip. The initiators included Mayor Admais, Syndikus de Pottere and Amtmann Schnedermann on Emder as well as Mayor Reimers, Magistrate Member Meier and Magistrate Secretary Conring on Aurich's side.
Construction and transport
The hydraulic engineers Tönjes Bley and Nikolaus Franzius were commissioned with the construction . Since they were able to fall back on previous preparatory work and the financing caused few problems due to the economic situation, the canal was excavated in just two years. The ship traffic, which included both passenger and freight transport, was operated by the Treckfahrtschutengesellschaft. It got its name from the fact that the companions were barges , i.e. watercraft without an independent drive. Rather, they were of horses towed , d. i.e. the barges were pulled along two parallel paths next to the canal. This also gives rise to the first part of the name, because to pull means to trek in Low German in East Frisian .
The plans of Bley and Franzius to continue the canal further east from Aurich and thus to cross the East Frisian peninsula completely, did not materialize in the following decades due to lack of money, this only happened in the 1880s with the construction of the Ems- Jade Canal. The construction of stone highways since the 1840s meant that the transport over the trecking low subsequently decreased sharply. Carriages took up an increasing share of passenger traffic. Mail traffic across the canal came to a complete standstill. The Treckfahrtschutengesellschaft was therefore dissolved in the 1860s.
In addition to its importance as a trade route, the canal had another function from the beginning: It improved the sluice train in the Emden canals. Since the port of the city did not yet have locks to the Ems at that time, shipping was dependent on the silt that accumulated with every flood being transported out of the hinterland by the flushing power of the water. There was a conflict of two opposing interests: While the city of Emden and its port companies were always interested in the highest possible water level in the canals in the hinterland, the farmers in the affected areas saw the drainage of their land as endangered. However, the port industry regularly decided the dispute in their favor. Only with the construction of the Nesserland lock in the 1880s did the problem of conflicting interests take a back seat, since the port has been independent of the tide since then .
course
The canal branched off from the city moat in Emden , the watercourse in front of the early modern fortifications of the city, and ran in a north-easterly direction over the district of the glory Up- and Wolthusen towards the village of Marienwehr . There the canal bent at a right angle to the southeast in the direction of Uphusen, in order to make another sharp curve in the northeast. Via the villages of Bangstede and Westerende-Kirchloog, which today belong to the municipality of Ihlow, as well as the current Aurich districts of Rahe and Haxtum , the low-level trek finally led to the Aurich inland port. Between Uphusen and Aurich, the course of the canal largely corresponds to the current course of the Ems-Jade Canal. However, parts of the Aurich inland port have now been filled in due to the low freight traffic.
Todays use
The canal is only of importance for commercial shipping in one section, namely that which was integrated into the Ems-Jade Canal from the late 19th century. The section between the Emder Wall and Uphusen is now used exclusively for recreational shipping. It is significant in this section because at Marienwehr the short deep branches off in the direction of the Kleiner Meer and connects this lake and the weekend settlements with their small marinas to the city and thus to the East Frisian waterway network.
Web link
Individual evidence
- ↑ Jannes Ohling (ed.): The eight and their seven sluices. Cultural, water and agricultural development of an East Frisian coastal landscape . Self-published by the Emden Drainage Association, Pewsum 1963, without ISBN, p. 882.
- ↑ The historical aspects of the canal are presented in: Ernst Siebert / Walter Deeters / Bernard Schröer: History of the City of Emden from 1750 to the Present (Volume VII of the series "Ostfriesland in the protection of the dyke", published by Deichacht Krummhörn, Pewsum) . Verlag Rautenberg, Leer 1980, without ISBN, p. 52 f.
- ↑ Gerd Janssen: Emden's nightmare: a muddy port , in: Reinhard Claudi (Ed.): Stadtgeschichten - Ein Emder reading book 1495/1595/1995 . Gerhard Verlag, Emden 1995, ISBN 3-9804156-1-9 , pp. 121–135, here pp. 126–129.
Coordinates: 53 ° 22 ′ 22 ″ N , 7 ° 12 ′ 56 ″ E