Wetterau share sugar factory

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Wetterau share sugar factory

logo
legal form Corporation
founding June 23, 1882
resolution 1981
Reason for dissolution Sale to Südzucker
Seat Friedberg (Hessen) , Germany
management at the time of foundation: Freiherr von Löw ( Nieder-Florstadt ), Heinrich Reif ( Steinfurth ), Ferdinand Schwarz ( Baiersröderhof ), August Bergsträsser ( Nieder-Olm ), Heinrich Schudt ( Görbelheimer Mühle ), Georg Heil ( Wickstadt ), Erich Westernacher ( Lindheim )
Branch food

The share-sugar factory Wetterau (AZW) was a sugar factory on equity basis in Fauerbach , later a district of Friedberg (Hess) . The sugar factory was right on Fauerbacher Strasse, northwest of Friedberg train station . The name is derived from the reference area for sugar beet and the originally planned location in Echzell in the Wetterau .

history

At the end of the 19th century, more and more farmers in the Wetterau decided to give up their wheat cultivation in favor of sugar beet cultivation, which was due to the continually falling wheat prices. In order to enable further processing directly on site, a sugar factory with 826,800 Marks share capital was founded in 1882 as the share -based sugar factory Wetterau .

The originally planned location Echzell, was located in favor of Friedberg on the western edge of the Wetterau, chosen because here better rail links were given, both by branch lines in the Wetterau ( Friedberg-Hanau railway , railway Friedberg mosquito ) to the transport of the To ensure sugar beet, as well as by the Main-Weser-Bahn to the north and south, in order to transport the production goods towards Frankfurt or Kassel.

After the construction of the sugar factory by the Ilsenburg machine factory was completed in 1883 , the first campaign started in October of the same year. The factory initially processed the yield from around 1,000 hectares of cultivation area, but this increased steadily - not least because of the proximity of the sugar factory to the cultivation location.

year Acreage He wears)
1887 1,000 25,000
1949 2,000 no information
1980 7,700 354.200
1989 no information > 256,000

In order to be able to remunerate the farmers uniformly, a uniform payment system was introduced in 1891/92. For the first time, this was based on the sugar obtained from sugar beet and the associated sugar content of the beet. In 1913, the AZW merged with other southern German sugar factories to form a beet purchasing association with a joint purchase. In order to do justice to the increased yield, it was decided in the same year to build two silos and connect them to the rail network. The in-house track system was then expanded, including a bridge track (on which the wagons were unloaded), a lime track, a salt track, a pull-out track and 5 other sidings in order to be able to handle as many cars as possible at the same time.

Molasses jug of the Actien sugar factory Wetterau ( Sugar Museum , Berlin)

During the season, a special supply network was organized over the rail routes in the surrounding area. It comprised an area in the vicinity of Friedberg, which extended (clockwise and starting in the north) as follows:

The farmers drove the beets to one of the 80 or so local loading points, where they were tipped into open freight cars . These wagons were collected from the railways and driven to the sugar factory. During the season that was up to 100 freight wagons per day. When they arrived at Friedberg train station, they were shunted by the company's own locomotives for unloading onto the company's own tracks.

In 1925 the factory could finally be converted to an electrical supply. This was done by a steam turbine that was operated by the company's own boiler house . In terms of energy, the sugar factory thus worked independently of the municipal supply.

While production rose sharply after the First World War, the Great Depression and the beginning of the Second World War came a time of crisis. The factory had been part of the war economy since 1939, so in 1938/39 it was decided to build an additional potato flake factory on the factory premises to improve the food supply. During this time, forced laborers were increasingly used for the necessary work and were housed in barracks on the factory premises. During the air raids on Friedberg in 1944/45, parts of the factory, including the newly built potato flake factory, were badly damaged or completely destroyed.

Despite the major war damage, the first beet campaign could be carried out again in October 1945. Since the cultivation of sugar beet was postponed in favor of grain and other foodstuffs, several "Cuba campaigns" took place around 1948: Here raw cane sugar was imported from Cuba and refined, and at the same time the production of powdered sugar and sugar syrup began. In 1952, the last war damage was finally repaired with the construction of a new staff house with an attached canteen.

In 1981 the sugar factory was sold to Südzucker AG . This immediately concentrated their beet processing in the Rhine-Main area on their sugar factory in Groß-Gerau . This made the 1981 season the last in which the sugar factory worked. The number of loading points was then reduced to 19 or 20 - one on the site of the former Friedberg sugar factory - and during the season two block trains with beets drove daily from Friedberg (Hesse) station to Groß-Gerau to the sugar factory there. This was done until 1991 when all beet transport was shifted to trucks and the road. The two remaining factory locomotives and the track systems of the sugar factory had already become dispensable in 1985. After the factory in Groß-Gerau was closed in 2007, the sugar beets from Wetterau are processed in the Wabern sugar factory in North Hesse and the Südzucker plant in Offstein in Rhineland-Palatinate .

The former site of the sugar factory was sold by Südzucker in 1988, whereupon the dismantling of the plant began. In May 1994 the factory's 82-meter-high chimney was blown up, and since then there have been some residential buildings on the site. The former administration building from the founding time of AZW was converted into a day care center in 1996, it is the only remaining structure of the sugar factory. The rest of the site was not built until 2011.

Locomotives and wagons

Locomotive 1 of the AZW (today property of the Wetterau Railway Friends)

With the construction of our own track systems in 1913, our own locomotive became necessary in order not to have to depend on the shunting locomotives of the state railway, which were not always available, at Friedberg station. Since a locomotive was only required during the campaign period from September to December, it was initially only rented and then returned to the owner after the campaign. As production increased (potato flake production, for example, ran independently of the campaign), it became necessary to have its own locomotive, which could be purchased second-hand. It was a two-axle steam locomotive from the Aktiengesellschaft für Lokomotivbau Hohenzollern , which was in operation until 1972. In order to be able to rationalize the expensive steam operation, a small locomotive from Deutz was bought in 1956 and a diesel locomotive of the type WR 360 C14 from the Royal Corps of Transport in 1969 ; the steam locomotive was still available as a reserve until 1972. After loading, the beet was converted to Staatsbahnloks, 1985, both engines were the railway enthusiasts Wetterau as donation via appropriated by the AZW. The sugar factory did not have its own freight wagons for transporting sugar beets. These were rented by the state railway during the campaign . Freight wagons were only available for the transport of molasses in tank wagons , as well as freight wagons for storing tools to maintain their own tracks, as well as for the transport of material within the plant.

Locomotive number design type Construction year Manufacturer Serial number Whereabouts
Bn2t 1897 Krauss 3631 (Rental locomotive)
1 Bn2t 1918 Hohenzollern 3699 new to Duisburger Kupferhütte , (Hochfeld), then AZW "1", † 1972
1 C-ie 1942 BMAG 11458 new to Wifo Berlin "31", from 1945 RCT "11458", 1969 to AZW "1", 1985 to Eisenbahnfreunde Wetterau in Bad Nauheim
2 B-dm 1956 Deutz 56411 new to AZW "2", 1985 to Eisenbahnfreunde Wetterau in Bad Nauheim, 1994 to B. van Engelen Mainische Feldbahnen in Schwerte

Trivia

In 2016 and 2018, the former AZW locomotive 1 was used for track construction work in Friedberg station due to an acute lack of locomotives . It was parked on one of the tracks in the area of ​​the former AZW locomotive shed, which is now used regularly by the DB for shunting trips .

literature

  • Andreas Christopher: Actien-Zuckerfabrik Wetterau, Friedberg . In: Oberhessische Vertriebsbetriebe AG (OVAG) (Ed.): Connection to the wide world: On the changeful development of the railway in Oberhessen , Friedberg 2014 (2015), ISBN 978-3-9815015-5-1 , p. 127f.
  • Urs Kramer u. Bruno Stötz: Transport history - beet trains . Stuttgart 2001.
  • Jürgen Röhrig: Sugar beet traffic by rail in the Wetterau . In: Oberhessische Vertriebsbetriebe AG (OVAG) (Ed.): Connection to the wide world: On the changeful development of the railroad in Oberhessen , Friedberg 2014 (2015), ISBN 978-3-9815015-5-1 , pp. 150–154.

Remarks

  1. Christopher gives “double tons” as the unit of measurement. Since this unit of measurement does not exist, but the unit of measurement quintals and - based on this - also the specified values ​​are plausible, a linguistic error can be assumed.

Individual evidence

  1. a b c Interactive map: Frankfurt Rhine Main cultural region. Retrieved November 4, 2018 .
  2. a b c Christopher: Actien sugar factory .
  3. Information according to Röhrig: Zuckerrübenverkehr , p. 150.
  4. ^ A b c Friedberg> Sugar factories> Company history> History> Company> Südzucker. Retrieved November 4, 2018 .
  5. ^ After: Röhrig: Zuckerrübenverkehr , p. 154.
  6. ^ Röhrig: Sugar beet traffic , p. 150.
  7. ^ Röhrig: Zuckerrübenverkehr , p. 151.
  8. a b V36. In: www.ef-wetterau.de. Eisenbahnfreunde Wetterau eV, accessed on November 6, 2018 .
  9. ^ Sugar factory on GG-Online
  10. ^ Röhrig: Sugar beet traffic , p. 154.
  11. ^ A twelve-family house as the first step , article in the Wetterauer Zeitung of July 30, 2011
  12. ^ A b Andreas Christopher: Aktien-Zuckerfabrik Wetterau. Retrieved November 6, 2018 .
  13. a b rangierdiesel.de - search. Retrieved November 6, 2018 .
  14. ^ Friedberg sugar factory | Butzbach-Licher Eisenbahnfreunde e. V. Accessed November 6, 2018 .
  15. Gandy dancer: Lotte returns - AZW 1 back in Friedberg. October 3, 2016, accessed November 6, 2018 .
  16. Archive 2016. In: www.ef-wetterau.de. Eisenbahnfreunde Wetterau eV, accessed on November 6, 2018 .

Coordinates: 50 ° 19 ′ 54.3 "  N , 8 ° 45 ′ 52.6"  E