Here I am! Back in
the modern world! All right, not
really. I just did not have any WiFi,
restricting my ability to publish posts on the blog. The reason can be found if you just keep
reading.
After our last day of German school, the packing began. We planned to start at Duisburg, home to
Germany’s biggest inland ports and also where the Ruhr River becomes part of
the Rhine join and then bike 140 km east, following the Ruhr.
The trip started early the next morning. We strapped the bags on our bikes and headed toward
the trains. (No we were not cheating, we
just didn’t have the time to bike to our “jumping-off point”.) We hustled our bikes off the train and immediately
began our 40 km adventure. Part of the
way through our cycling for the day, we encountered a water museum that we visited
so we could warm up, because there had been a cold drizzle for most of the trip
so far and we were chilly. We only skimmed
through its content, because we planned to meet Ellie in Essen. (Jax and I were exited to visit Essen because
the name literally translates to “food”.)The
museum used to be an old water tower, which held 500,000 liters of water. It is now a panoramic observatory and museum and holds only 50,000 liters of water. Relieved to arrive at our campground, on the
banks of the Ruhr River, we gratefully set up our campsite, relishing the thought
of a warm, dry sleeping bag that night.
On our second day, our biking consisted only of traveling
to the train station so we could ride into Essen to visit its famous coal
mines. The first mine we circuited was
just the original workings. They had no
informative signs to read and little audio explanation of the equipment lying
about. It would set the stage for the
next mining museum we would tour.
The administration of the second mine did not allow anyone
down into the actual mine. It was much
more of an informative tour, with pictures of life below the surface and then
how the coal traveled from the mine carts in the elevator to being market-ready
in just 14 minutes. The owners of an
iron works decided to drill a coal mine so they could use to coal as heat in
the iron making process. They drilled
their first hole in 1852. The mine grew
until there were 9000 employees and they had drilled 12 main shafts. Unfortunately, the company experienced 300-3000
deaths a year, because of the danger involved in mining. But, they paid the workers well on account of
this danger and serious side effects such as deafness from the pneumatic drills
that they used without ear protection and suffocation from so much coal dust
that would stick to the lungs and restrict oxygen. Until later, even the way the miners climbed
down into the mine endangered them. At
first, they climbed down a 200 meter ladder.
If only one miner fell, well, he and those below him would free fall into a
separation of body and soul. Therefore,
they attempted to improve the system.
They had a rope with platforms that corresponded to other platforms on
the wall of the shaft. The rope would
then oscillate up and down and the miners would hop on the top platform as the
rope went down and, when it began to travel upwards again, they would jump onto
the platform on the wall, and then repeat all the way down. This finally led to an elevator which
rocketed up and down the shaft at an astounding 17 m/s. It thankfully had a steel cable this time as
opposed to just a rope. They transported
the coal differently as well. As opposed
to being transported in carts on an elevator, which when full weighed 12 tons, they
loaded it on a conveyor belt. The
conveyor belt took it to a separate elevator, which could now hoist 22 tons,
into which the coal dropped. In the time
before they used the conveyor belt, they had to have a way to remove the coal
from the carts quickly. They found the
obvious solution. Dump them! The coal carts would roll down the track to a
junction where one man somewhat evenly distributed 15000 coal carts over 16
hours. The one-ton cart would then
travel on its designated track, fall through the floor and end up upside-down
above the conveyor belt. Then, it would
travel back up through the floor and back onto the elevator for another round
in the mines. The conveyor belt had
little holes to sort out the smaller pieces.
15 year-old boys would sort the rocks from the coal with their bare
hands. After this separation, the coal
dropped into a bath, where waves settled the smaller pieces and let the larger
ones rise to the top. The sorted coal
was then ready to be shipped.
But, how did they haul the one-ton carts in the first
place? They used horses. The horses would pull the 16-ton, train of coal carts without brakes through tunnels held up by wood beams. Most horses would be down in the mines for
twelve - fourteen years, and some never experienced sunlight. The wood used to hold up the walls was not
permanent, it only slowed the collapse of the tunnel and acted as an early
warning system. When the sound of the
wood cracking became too loud, the miners knew to rush out as fast as the varied
heights of the tunnels would let them.
Nowadays, there are two cities in the area: The one you immediately witness when you
arrive, and the underground city of tunnels that stretches to the horizon. Because of all these tunnels, the city has
actually sunk 24m, putting it at a lower elevation than the Ruhr River. This requires dams to hold the water back. But, yet another threat grabs the attention of
the town. The area would also be flooded
if the water in the mines were not pumped out.
As it is not still a working mine, water has filled the mine. The water, if not controlled, would flow up
and engulf the town. Much energy is
required to pump the water out, and, since it comes out at a warm 20 degrees to
a scalding 50 degrees C, it surprises me that it is not used for heating and
hot water, as opposed to using more energy to cool it before being dumped in
the river.
It was only the second day of our trip and we had learned a head-full.
Star Wars? Nope. Holding the ceiling up.
Every hill except for one in the area was made from rubble from the bombings in WWII
A cross-section of the steel cable
The man who directed the path of the carts is in the top floor. Below him are the carts as they dump their load.
The 15 year-olds sorting the coal
We ended the day well
