Maria Mine material ropeway
Former material ropeway in Wałbrzych, Poland
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The Maria Mine material ropeway (Polish: Kolej linowa kopalni Maria) was an industrial material ropeway in Wałbrzych (German: Waldenburg) in Lower Silesia, Poland. It served the nearby Maria Mine and was used to transport waste rock from the mine area to a spoil tip outside the main mining complex.[1]
| Maria Mine material ropeway | |
|---|---|
Material ropeway of the Maria Mine in Waldenburg (today Wałbrzych) | |
 Interactive map of Maria Mine material ropeway | |
| Overview | |
| Status | Dismantled |
| Location | Wałbrzych, Lower Silesia |
| Country | Poland |
| Coordinates | 50.76941382849767°N 16.262635046420495°E |
| Termini | Maria Mine (Tiefbauschacht) Spoil tip / waste-rock dumping station |
| No. of stations | 2 |
| Open | by 1912–1913 |
| Closed | by 1935 |
| Technical features | |
| Aerial lift type | Material ropeway |
| Line length | approx. 576 m |
The installation formed part of the surface infrastructure of the mine and functioned primarily as a waste-handling system rather than a coal-transport installation.
History
The ropeway is documented by historical photographs from 1913 showing the unloading station and sections of the line near the mine buildings.[2]
Archival records indicate that an aerial ropeway already existed at the Tiefbau mining site by 1912. A series preserved in the Polish state archives refers to a Luftseilbahn Tiefbau, confirming the presence of such an installation at the mine in the early 20th century.[3]
Another archival entry from 1935 refers to a site plan concerning the demolition of a spoil-tip ropeway at Tiefbau. This indicates that the installation was dismantled during the mid-1930s, probably shortly before or after the cessation of mining at the site.[4]
Function
The ropeway was designed for the transport of waste rock (mine spoil) generated during underground coal extraction. Instead of transporting coal, the installation carried unwanted rock material away from the mine buildings to a spoil heap located at some distance from the shafts.[1]
Such ropeways were commonly used in mining districts with limited space for spoil disposal near the shaft area, allowing the material to be deposited at a separate dumping site.
Route
The ropeway connected the grounds of the Maria Mine (historically also known as Tiefbauschacht or Hans-Heinrich- und Marie-Schacht) with a nearby spoil tip in the Śródmieście district of Wałbrzych.[1]
The approximate coordinates of the lower station at the mine site are:
50.76941382849767°N 16.262635046420495°E
The dumping station on the spoil tip was located at approximately:
50.767457548971336°N 16.270223051817535°E
The distance between these points was about 576 metres.
Relationship to the mine
The ropeway belonged to the infrastructure of the Maria Mine, a coal mine that operated in Wałbrzych until the late 1930s.[5]
While the mine itself produced bituminous coal, the ropeway served only to remove waste rock from the mining process and deposit it on a spoil heap outside the main pit area.