Zwillingsdampffoerdermaschine Hannover

1893 · Twin Steam Winding Engine · Work 332 of 1,871

Zwillingsdampffoerdermaschine Hannover, 1893, Twin Steam Winding Engine

The twin-cylinder steam winding engine in the machine hall of Zeche Hannover, two horizontal steam cylinders, one on each side, driving a single large rope sheave between them over which the winding rope passes, hand-worked reversing lever and depth indicator dial watched by the engineman at his stand, the engineman in a dark cloth jacket, waistcoat and cap, only the levers, the dial and a bell, the hall lit by daylight from tall windows and by gas lamps.

What it was used for
The engine stands in the machine hall beside the masonry headframe tower of the Hannover colliery at Bochum-Hordel, today an LWL museum. The LWL dates it to 1893 and calls it the oldest winding engine of Ruhr coal mining on its original site; ZEIT-RAEUME RUHR lists it as a Koepe winding engine of 1893, while ruhrzechenaus.de gives 1892 instead. Maker, power, cylinder dimensions, payload and hoisting speed are not stated in the accessible sources.
What was new
What is new about it is not an invention but a proof: it is a Koepe winding engine, and it stands on the same colliery site where the method was first tried in 1877 on a rebuilt old engine. As early as 1888 a tower winding installation to the patent had been set up on Shaft 2; only the installation over Shaft 1 survives. The barb is its survival. It is the oldest on its original site because everything comparable was scrapped, not because it was the best - and it no longer runs on steam. An LWL press release of 2003 mentions compressed air for demonstrations, the current LWL home page and other accounts electricity or electric motors: the movement is preserved, the power source that defined the machine has been replaced. The colliery itself reached its highest annual output in 1965 with 1,771,326 tonnes and was closed eight years later.

Further reading