Chain boat navigation on the Elbe and Saale rivers was a special type of ship transport that dominated motorised inland shipping on the Elbe and Saale river in the second half of the 19th century. A chain tug pulled several barges along a chain laid in the river. Until chain boat navigation revolutionised inland shipping in Germany from 1866 onwards, initially on the Elbe, towing was the predominant type of propulsion for upstream ships. After the chain was removed, up to 28 chain tugs sailed upstream of the Elbe over a total distance of 668 kilometres (Hamburg to Aussig in Bohemia). From 1890 onwards, the importance of chain shipping in the area of the lower Elbe continued to decline in favour of paddle steam tugs and was completely discontinued here by 1898. On the Upper Elbe, it was able to survive until 1926/27 and was then only used locally in Germany until 1943 in three short, particularly difficult sections of the Elbe. From 1943 to 1945, the last section of the route in Germany was the short section in Magdeburg, where chain boat navigation on the Elbe had begun. In Bohemia, it was still used until 1948. Chain boat navigation existed on the Saale from 1873 to 1921.
Spread of chain boat navigation
Elbe river
On 16 June 1864, the Vereinigte Hamburg-Magdeburger Dampfschiffahrts-Compagnie – Martin Graff was the director of this company – received the concession for chain shipping on the Elbe. The first chain tug steamer, the "No. 1", built by the company's own shipyard in Buckau according to the French model, was used for testing on 15 August 1866 in the area of the Magdeburg bridges between Magdeburg-Neustadt and Buckau. On this approximately five-kilometre-long section, the Elbe has a particularly high current velocity due to the Domfelsen. The tests were successful and regular operations took place on this route.
Due to the high acquisition costs, the expansion of the chain by the Vereinigte Hamburg-Magdeburger Dampfschiffahrts-Compagnie was relatively slow. By 1868, the 51-kilometre-long chain had been laid between Magdeburg and Ferchland, in 1872 between Ferchland and Wittenberge (77 kilometres), and in 1874 between Wittenberge and Hamburg (165 kilometres). The situation was different on the Upper Elbe. The company Kettenschleppschiffahrt der Oberelbe (KSO) under the direction of the engineer and general director Ewald Bellingrath in Dresden was responsible for this. He had recognised that a revolution in the Elbe shipping, which had become insignificant until then, could only take place with the use of modern technology. In the article The Chain boat navigation on the Elbe by A. Woldt it says about the first test run in Dresden:At that time, in 1869, when the first test run on the route from Riesa to Dresden took place under his direction, the rule of the Bomätscher was still in full bloom, and they were so well aware of it that they did not fear the competition of the chain steamer in the least. On the contrary, they even pitied him, expecting at any moment that he would perish on one of the many dangerous rapids. But when the vessel with the train it had towed had elegantly and safely passed the notorious sharp corner of the Meissen carriage, the faces became noticeably longer, and after at the end even the horror of all horrors for the shipping of that time, the dangerous passage under the Augustus Bridge in Dresden, which narrowed the stream, had been covered without the slightest damage to the towing train, then the Bomätscher were overcome by a feeling of anger and enmity, and more than one stone, hurled from their midst, flew onto the vehicle.Just a few months later, Bellingrath applied for the Saxon, Anhalt, and Prussian chain concession, which was granted to him in the same year (December 1870) for the Elbe line from Magdeburg to Schandau on the Bohemian border after tough efforts and overcoming all political and official difficulties. As early as 1 October 1871, i.e. only about ten months later, towing operations on this 330-kilometre-long route with nine chain steamers went into operation. Later, Bellingrath also ensured the further spread of chain shipping on other rivers in Germany and he is therefore often referred to as the "father of chain boat navigation".
In 1872, the "Prague Steam and Sailing Shipping Company" expanded the chain operation from the Bohemian border to Aussig and started with two chain tugs. In 1879, a third chain tug was added on this route, so that two to three tugs per day with an average of seven to eight barges sailed upstream from Schandau. In 1882, the company became the property of the "Austrian Northwest Steamship Company". In 1895, the chain is said to have even extended over a 777-kilometre route from Hamburg and via the Elbe and Vltava to Prague, although only on the section from Hamburg to Aussig did extensive and steady operation take place.
In 1881, Bellingrath's KSO bought the Elb-Dampfschiffahrts-Gesellschaft and the Hamburg-Magdeburger Dampfschiffahrts-Compagnie and merged with them to form the Kette – Deutsche Elbschiffahrts-Gesellschaft. It was headed by Bellingrath and was responsible for the entire German Elbe chain operation from Hamburg to the Bohemian border (630 kilometres).
Saale river
In 1871, a "Steam and Tug Shipping Association on Saale and Unstrut" was founded in Artern. The plan was to equip short sections of the route with chains or ropes. However, this plan was never implemented by the company.
On the Saale, the 21 km long line from the mouth of the Saale in Barby to Calbe was put into operation in 1873, thus establishing a connection to the chain in the Elbe. Further expansion was postponed for the time being due to the difficult fairway and the seven locks upstream. The state of Anhalt, and especially the city of Halle, pushed for an extension of the chain. However, Prussia only considered an expansion to be sensible if the chain would reach Leipzig after the construction of the Elster-Saale Canal. After long negotiations, it was decided in 1881 to extend the chain to 105 km on a trial basis and thus to Halle; this was implemented in 1884.
Chain boat navigation on the Saale suffered a sharp decline with the outbreak of the First World War and was completely discontinued in 1921. The chain was taken out of the Saale in 1922.
Effect of chain ships on the Elbe navigation In the middle of the 19th century, the railways developed into a nationwide network and increasingly competed with tow shipping. Until then, the Elbe shipping industry had accepted the burden of the and the natural obstacles of the waterway, because it still had an advantage over the country roads. The Elbe toll was more than half of the total costs on the route from Hamburg to Saxony, and even 70% to Bohemia. Fluctuating water levels, and changes in the course of the river, as well as wind and weather, also resulted in transport delays and not infrequently losses of ships and cargo. The railway transported goods faster, more reliably and, because of the exemption from customs duties, also cheaper than the ship. Advancing industrialisation brought growth to both modes of transport, but the growth on the railway side was much greater. In addition, especially the goods subject to full customs duties left the Elbe and switched to the railway. These goods were also the higher-quality goods, the transport of which had brought in the highest revenues. Shipping traffic was increasingly limited to bulk goods such as pig iron, coal, guano, and saltpeter. It was not until 1863 that the Elbe toll could be significantly reduced and in 1870 it was completely abolished.
Chain tugging revolutionised the Elbe chain shipping, which had been characterised by towing for centuries. Sailing operations were discontinued or only used as a makeshift. The heavy rigging became superfluous and could be replaced by additional cargo. The crew on the barges was reduced by more than half. The skipper became independent of many unfavourable weather conditions. The number of possible voyages of a ship increased almost threefold. Instead of two trips, six to eight trips were made annually, covering 8000 km annually. Accordingly, delivery times were shortened and more reliably adhered to, and costs fell, so that some goods that had been transferred to the railways switched back to the cheaper waterway.
Similar changes could very well have been made by , but the concessions of chain shipping guaranteed the skippers transport at fixed prices at all times and thus sufficient safety, to stop sailing operations and switch to towing operations. The size of the barges, which at that time was usually around 100 tonnes, could be increased. About ten years after the introduction of tug boating, barges with a typical carrying capacity of about 500 tons were built.
The volume of freight remained virtually constant for a very long period between 1830 and 1874. For example, the ships transported about 7 to 8 million quintals (350,000–400,000 tons) annually from Hamburg upstream. The shipping traffic downstream to Hamburg was somewhat lower at about 6 million quintals (300,000 tons). After the completion of chain shipping, the volume of freight increased steadily and after ten years reached about four times, namely 28 million hundredweights (1.4 million tons) upstream and 24 million hundredweights (1.2 million tons) downstream.
Licence conditions and competition In order to be able to operate chain shipping, the company responsible for the chain towing operation needed a licence from the responsible state, in which, among other things, the rights and obligations towards the skippers were regulated. Paragraphs 10 to 13 of the licence conditions for the Kettenschleppschifffahrt der Oberelbe (KSO) regulated the tariff. Accordingly, every tariff adjustment required the approval and authorisation of the Ministry of Finance. Tariffs were also fixed for at least one year and could not be changed during this time. The transport fees were to be calculated in proportion to the towing distance, regardless of the goods transported. In addition, the chain shipping companies were critically monitored by the Ministry of Finance. Every five years, the annual net income was reviewed to ensure that it did not exceed 10 per cent of the capital demonstrably invested in the company. If the profit was too high, the tariffs were reduced by the Ministry of Finance.
As a result of these regulations, the freedom of the chain shipping companies was very limited and they were unable to react flexibly to changes in the market. In contrast to chain shipping, the other types of towage were free to set tariffs according to supply and demand, adjust costs to the volume of freight transported or negotiate special conditions with individual customers.
However, paragraphs 6 and 9 of the licence document were even more drastic. The operator was obliged to transport every loaded or unloaded vehicle in the order in which it was registered, regardless of the route over which the vehicle was to be towed. Although the Kettenschifffahrtsgesellschaft was permitted to transport goods or vehicles on its own account, third-party vehicles had priority in transport under all circumstances, even if they had been registered later. This led to the virtual elimination of its own cargo shipping business.