Endangered Machinery

In the Woods

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Foundations of the 1895-built Otto-Hoffmann coke oven battery of Neu Iserlohn I coal mine, Germany (1849 Incorporation, 1859 Shaft sinking starts, 1862 Production starts, 1927 Production reaches all time high, 1955 Consolidation with Robert Müser Coal, 1968 Production ends)

Weingartenstraße

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The face of Dietmar Bär, a Dortmund local and an actor popular nationwide, is showing on this Weingartenstraße billboard. Formerly situated in closest possible proximity to Hoesch Steel's BOS shop (Oxygenstahlwerk), Weingartenstraße used to be the dirtiest street in town. The pipeline in the background is part of the city's gas transportation network, connecting the various Hoesch Steel sites, air fractionation plants, and coking plants across town. Once much larger, the part shown still is transporting nitrogen. Dortmund, Germany.

Volkswohl Bund Insurances Headquarters (I)

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Volkswohl Bund insurance company, former headquarters, 1970-built part, main staircase. Blasted February 17, 2008.

Insurances are an industry characteristic to the city of Dortmund that I haven't mentioned here before, and Volkswohl Bund is one of the insurance companies registered here. At the moment, it is replacing its headquarters. The new ones will be errected where the 1955- and 1970-built parts of former one stood.

Charleroi-Marcinelle

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Battery 4

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Number 4, coke oven battery of Hansa Coke, Dortmund, Germany, during demolition

Even though Hansa Coke is a popular technical museum, attracting more than 20,000 visitors in 2007, large parts of the plant were demolished in 2005, including almost all gas handling and byproduct winning units, almost half of the cokemaking capacity, and the modern dry quenching facility.

Grab your new wallpaper

... here.

After Germania

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Number 4 shaft, Germania Colliery, Dortmund-Marten as of Febuary 2008

Prints and posters available

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Vorwärts und nicht vergessen

Klick = Großansicht

Eine schwarz umhüllte (Holz-)Bramme markierte 2001 das Ende der Stahlerzeugung in Dortmund: in den verschiedenen Werksteilen im Stadtgebiet wurden auf einer Fläche zigfach so groß wie die vom Wall eingegrenzte Dortmunder City fast sämtliche Anlagen mitsamt zugehöriger Infrastruktur außer Betrieb gesetzt und anschließend im bisher größten Industrieumzug überhaupt ebenfalls fast sämtlich nach China verkauft. Momentan wird mit Hochdruck an der Tilgung der Spuren der Stahlzeit gearbeitet, damit 2010 alles kulturhauptstädtisch glänzt. Neun Jahre. Was dann aus dem Wahlspruch geworden sein wird?

Golden Oil

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Neuss harbor = food industries. In this picture: flour (Diamant-Mehl), mustard, mayonnaise, Maggi (Nestlé-Thommy), oils (Walter Rau).

Helenenstraße, during rainfall

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Helenenstraße/Zollstraße with Krupp power plant and coal mine; Essen-Altendorf, Germany, November 2007; demolition in progress



EXTENDED INFORMATION

In the background two of the few remainders of the Krupp empire in Essen, now both facing demolition: the boiler house, generator house and one of the winding engine houses of Amalie colliery, named after Helene-Amalie Krupp (1732 – 1810) and part of the Friedrich Krupp Bergwerke AG from 1927 on (boiler house left building, turbines and generator house back part of right building, winding engine house of shaft Marie front part of right building).

Krupp was Germany's major weapon supplier in both World Wars. While almost the entire Kruppsche Gußstahlfabrik in Essen was dismantled by the Allies after WW2, the company continues to exist. After the hostile takover of Hoesch, the closure of Rheinhausen and the merger with Thyssen, it is now part of Germany's largest steelmaker ThyssenKrupp. ThyssenKrupp currently is in the process of moving its headquarters to Essen - to the founding site of the Krupp works, to be more precise. Essen will be the European Capital of Culture in 2010.

Harbor Night

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Self portrait, coal harbor, Dortmund. Taken with an Adox Golf medium format folder. Selling for just a few Euros, such vintage cameras can be quite fun.

Gas holder, afterwards

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The large Hansa Coke, Dortmund, Germany gasometer on the quiet evening of its demolition. Once holding up to 175,000 cubic meters of coke oven gas, the structure of 95 m height and 56 m diameter saw its share of explosives eight days before Christmas, 2005. Earlier state.

Carrosserie La Victoire

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Place Wauters, Roux (in the North of Charleroi)

Le palais de la Frite

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Chaussée de Mons, between Mons and Charleroi, Belgium

Laminoirs & Usines du Ruau (I)

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Laminoirs du Ruau SA, Monceau-sur-Sambre (Charleroi), in service


ENGLISH
Buying into this 1863-founded rolling mill in the north of Charleroi's industrial heart was step one for Albert Frère to become one of Europe's most influential investors. After gaining control over most of Wallonia's steel industry and later selling it to the Belgian state, he diverted into media, energy and financial services. He became known by a wider audience when trying to list his 25.1% Bertelsmann stake at the stock exchange last year; Bertelsmann bought back the stake for 4.5 billion Euros.


DEUTSCH
1863 Gründung der Laminoirs Emile Constant-Bonnehill, 1879 Gründung der Laminoirs du Ruau und Übernahme der alten Gesellschaft, 1905 Auflösung und Gründung der SA des Laminoirs et Boulonneries du Ruau, später Laminoirs & Usines du Ruau, dann Laminoirs du Ruau SA, heute Laminoirs du Ruau SA Gruppo Beltrame.

Mit dem Einstieg in dieses Werk legte Albert Frère im Alter von 30 Jahren den Grundstein zu seinem raschen Aufstieg: Kontrolle großer Teile der wallonischen Stahlindustrie, vermögensbildender Verkauf an den belgischen Staat Ende der 1970er Jahre, Ruin der Wallonie in der kurz darauf einsetzenden Stahlkrise, Einstieg Frères in Medien, Energie und Versicherungen. Hierzulande geriet Frère zuletzt im vorherigen Jahr in die Schlagzeilen: er wollte seinen 25.1-prozentigen Bertelsmann-Anteil, den er unter Middelhoff im Tausch gegen seinen 30-prozentigen RTL Group-Anteil erhalten hatte, an die Börse bringen; Bertelsmann löste ihn für 4,5 Milliarden Euro aus.

Welcome, BoingBoing-Readers! (Updated)

Finding your site featured on both BoingBoing Gadgets and BoingBoing is a very good feeling - thank you, Joel, Cory, thanks, Monoscope, and welcome everyone coming from there!

The archive page which contains all single photos is quite large and might take a moment to load. That's why you now see 25 instead of just 5 items on the front page.

Perhaps you also want to see The Collections.

Conveyor belt interchange

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Jackerath belt interchange, Garzweiler strip mine, Rhenish Lignite Area, Germany

In the far background, one of four regional multi-Gigawatt power plants, featuring up to 14 blocks each. In the mines of that area, material handling is almost exclusively by conveyor belts; connections from the lignite storages to the power plants are by train.

ALSO SEE
2007-04-16: Living in Germany III: Bergheim

Control Room

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Control room of a now demolished power plant with cyclone coal boilers

Duisburger Kupferhütte

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DK Recycling und Roheisen, better known as Duisburger Kupferhütte. In a recycling process, the company produces cast iron pigs (Gießereiroheisenmasseln) from metallic residues.


RELATED PHOTO SERIES
Nocturnes

RELATED SINGLE PHOTOS
DK Blast Furnace
Slag Dumping
UFO Landing

(Thanks BL!)

Miner's lunch break

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Mining electrician having lunch break in the control room of the Eastern steam winding engine of number 2 shaft, Fürst Leopold colliery, Dorsten, Germany. The two 4-cylinder engines of shaft 2 are the last steam engines in regular use in the Ruhr coal mining district. Put into service in 1914, they will see retirement later this year as mining acitivies have come to an end at this colliery.

Seraing blast furnace to restart?

There is no offical word yet, but all signs indicate that ArcelorMittal will restart the Cockerill Sambre Seraing blast furnace (HF 6) later this year. Arcelor blew out the furnace in 2005 as part of a mid-term plan to shut down the entire hot metal production in the Liège basin and to reduce hot metal capacities across Europe. The merger with Mittal meant a revision of these plans. For now, the idea is to compensate maintenance-related production losses of other European ArcelorMittal sites with Seraing iron, but likely, the entire Liège shutdown plan might be called into question. Last night, the Seraing blast furnace was in full illumination again, a sight not seen for long months. I reported on its closure in these blog postings:

2005-04-18 The last tapping
2005-04-26 Au revoir, Esperance

More photos:

2005-07-21 Strictement
2005-08-21 Backyard Furnace
2005-11-11 Une ville à vivre

Slab Cutter

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Control room; slab cutting and marking facility downstream the three slab casters of Hoesch Stahl's Dortmund-Hoerde site. Shut down when photographed, now demolished.

Brammen-Längs-/Querteil-und-Markierungsanlage, OX DO, Hoesch Stahl. Abgerissen.

Trimet Aluminum

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Trimet Aluminium, Essen, Germany
July 2007
In service

LF (from now on, I will mark on which film format the photo has been taken. LF = 4x5" large format, MF = 6x6, 6x7 or 6x9 cm medium format, unmarked = digital. Larger prints can be ordered from large format than from medium format, and larger from medium format than from digital.)