Since the handover of the construction site in Wolfswinkel in January 2025, 6 of a total of 12 historic locks on the Finowkanal are now under construction. Time for an update on the construction progress:
Construction work has made the most progress in Ruhlsdorf. The north chamber walls have already been stripped of their formwork. The formwork, reinforcement and concrete work is continuing on the heads and the south chamber wall. Work has also begun on the wing walls of the lock entrance in the lower head. The floor slab for the operations building has also been completed and the reconstruction of the historic building will begin as soon as the weather and space conditions on the construction site allow.
The floor of the Leesenbrück lock has also been completed. Formwork, reinforcement and concreting work is currently being carried out on the lower head and the chamber walls. The circulation channels are also being installed on the upper head.
In Grafenbrück, the sheet piling between the construction pits was removed at the end of 2024. The current status of work is similar to that in Leesenbrück. The base has been completed and work on the heads and chamber walls is progressing.
As the Schöpfurt lock was already repaired in 2006, the work here is limited to the automation. The necessary preparatory earthworks for the electrical engineering have been completed so far and the shafts for the onward transfer switches have been cut (noisily) into the chamber wall.
As it was established during the dismantling of the old lock structure that no water was pressing into the excavation pit, many process steps could and can be omitted. This means that steps such as underwater demolition, diving operations, the insertion of micropiles, underwater concreting and the draining of the excavation pit are no longer necessary. The construction site is therefore only a few weeks behind the Leesenbrück and Grafenbrück locks.
The construction site access road is currently being built in Wolfswinkel before the construction site can be set up. The limited space available makes setting up the construction site particularly challenging and time-consuming. The use of large equipment is therefore not expected for some time.
