Roundhouse

Roundhouse or Lokremise is the name of the covered parking space of locomotives in railway depots or locomotive railway stations. Essentially, three types have shown; the rectangular shed, the Roundhouse and the roundhouse.

In order to carry out maintenance on the undercarriage of the locomotives in the roundhouse, there is often pits under the tracks. Roundhouse where steam locomotives are fueled (hence the name Austrian boiler house ), have each track a flue.

Rectangular shed

The simplest design is the rectangular scales, which can be used for the accommodation of one to a two-digit number of locomotives. The rectangular shed is being built even today. Most of rectangular scales that emerged in the 19th century were to sail on a course road. Larger scales were occasionally provided with an upstream hub or traverser. In the rectangular scales that were built during the government- facilitated addition to railway construction in Germany from about 1900, this was not necessary, because on branch lines normally frequented only tender locomotives that had not be rotated.

Large Telescope scales are also found in conjunction with upstream or internal sliding platforms, such as maintenance workshops or where only vehicles are housed, which must not be rotated. But there were also box shed with sliding platforms for steam locomotives, as in Hagen or Taught, which then was a separate hub on the site.

Around the house

The round house, even rotunda Heizhausdom, circle, round or Central shed called, consists of a circular building in the middle of the turntable is to the star-shaped join the sidings for the locomotives. The round house has one or more entrances from the outside and is otherwise completely covered. In this way also the hub of bad weather was protected. Occasionally, the buildings were equipped at the beginning of the railway era with a Ausschlackplatz with water crane at Einfahrgleis. The construction of the round house was essentially limited to the 19th century. In Germany the last round house was built in 1893 in Berlin- Pankow with 24 tracks. Round houses were used in railway junctions Europe and North America well. With the purchase of longer locomotives most round houses were abandoned because they could not increase as rectangle or ring shed readily. In Germany there are only two round houses ( goods station Berlin- Pankow and in the entrance to the Bw Berlin- Rummelsburg ); the third last round house was demolished in April 1978 in Paderborn. More roundhouses Prussian design are still in Poland (eg roundhouse Pila ) and in the Russian Kaliningrad Oblast ( the northern part of the former Prussian province of East Prussia ).

Ring shed

The ring Dandruff is a design of the roundhouse, which was based on the experience of the roundhouses. The ring Dandruff is basically attached to a hub and circular segment built around this. Only in rare cases could be reached via a switch connection to the roundhouse tracks with small ring scales on a turntable has been omitted in these cases. Today, you can observe this situation in some ring shed again, since you have removed the hub for reasons of maintenance cost savings.

In Germany first four to six permanent ring flakes were usually built, which were then expanded over the years with the growth of traffic; often semi-circular. In rare cases, it also built two ring shed directly to each other, or as in the depot Hamburg -Altona, the two ring scales to a large, almost closed oval, with the original two closely spaced differently sized hubs served the Zufahrgleise to the different lengths of the engine shed. Later, the two individual hubs developed in Altona to two interlocking, major hubs. The roundhouse has now been demolished.

Ring scales have been extended in many cases partially or completely to the outside, if there longer locomotives were home. They were built well into the 20th century; For example, in railway operations Rheine or 1972 Bahnbetriebswerk Saalfeld.

In most engine shed at least minor repairs and maintenance can be performed with larger roundhouse also have own workshop additions and sidings.

Examples

• Roundhouse Mülheim
• Skierniewice roundhouse

Reusing old buildings

Numerous (ring) engine shed that no longer serve their original purpose today are escaped by conversion in culture and event centers to the final decay. Since these buildings due to their design often have good acoustics, they are very suitable for concerts. Well-known representatives of this group are the roundhouse in Bielefeld, the engine shed in Rosenheim, the Lokwelt Freilassing as a branch of the Deutsches Museum, the former locomotive depot in St. Gallen, the former engine shed in Klaus at the Pyhrnbahn and the boiler house Stammersdorf in Vienna.