Industrial Culture: Zollverein in the Ruhr

Site map of mammoth location, This shaft was only for the extraction of the coal. Miners entered and exited from other shafts

 For a recent company outing we toured the "Cokerie" at the Zollverein Coal Mine in Essen. It is a UNESCO World Heritage site and a stop on the European Route of Industrial Heritage. It is reputed to be the most Beautiful Coal Mine in the World. It is certainly impressive and worth the visit if you are in the Ruhrgebiet (or Kohlpott as some know the area for the very same reason of mines like this).

The building directly behind is the Coal storage area, conveyors passed the coal directly from mine to this building

Germany has done an admirable job of recognizing the importance of their industrial history, unlike most of the USA which prefers to think of Carnegie, Vanderbilt, and Guggenheim as cultural institutions that just sprung into existence fully formed rather than acknowledge the industrial history of those family names and the industries by which those fortunes and the livelihoods of countless people were made..

A map of the facility rendered in 3D

We visited this time the Cokerie which is the part of the mine dedicated to processing the coal extracted from the mine into the more useful and cleaner burning COKE.

The view of the Coking Furnaces from the top of the Coal Storage Building

<

Unfortunately the Ferris Wheel is no longer operational

Stairs descending the path once limited to Coal for the furnaces

Inside the conveyor hall that once fed the coal to the ovens

The last computer used to the run the facility until 1993, when the facility closed

The coking ovens at the right were the "black side" while chemical treatment and storage to the left were the "white" side

Inside the coking oven with the door removed

Coking oven door

Standing on top of the coking ovens

The inside of the Quenching facility has been reclaimed by nature

This large piece of Coke is a purer form of Carbon than coal and a needed part of the iron making process

this locomotive moved the Coke Cars from the ovens to the quenching facility

The Quenching stack

The impressive works at Zollverein Shaft