Symbolic Signal

That signal is almost too symbolic, don't you think? Makes me wonder why it's even lit... Platform 6 and 7 of the station Leverkusen - Opladen, now overgrown and useless. The access tunnel had been sealed years ago, with those "no entry" signs on the support columns telling everyone that the area is off limits. Nowadays, only two trains stop here per hour and direction, the little shop inside the station building is boarded up...

Not that long ago Leverkusen - Opladen was a small railroad hub, with a major passenger and freight line intersecting here, one of the largest locomotive workshops of the country just to our right, and the "Balkanexpress", a small branchline that ran all the way to Remscheid - Lennep, as you may have known from my little tour there.

Now, the freight switchyard is just a bare plane, only ballast reminds one that there once was traffic here. The locomotive workshop was closed just on its 100th birthday, despite protests and even hunger strikes by the workers. The huge area in the middle of the city is to be redeveloped under the elaborate name "neue bahnstadt opladen" (new railroad city opladen). This of course means tearing down as much of our local history as possible, leaving some "historic buildings" like the water tower and boiler room. I wonder who the hell thinks that one or two dispersed parts of the former workshop will show the historic meaning of this area to future generations...

It always gets me mad that the Unesco steps in when they want to build a high rise building in Cologne (which might block the view of the Cathedral from that angle) or a bridge in Dresden (which would have destroyed the "Landschaftsraum"), with no historic structure or building being damaged in either case, but doesn't really give a shit about those landmarks that are not a pretty or easy to market as cathedrals and landscapes. I'm talking of course about industrial monuments, about headgears, steel mills and the likes (and of course locomotive workshops). If you've seen my "favourite photographer" section on my userpage, you might have noticed the name Harald Finster. He's an industrial photographer, and has written many articles on the topic of historic buildings being torn down without a second thought. Those "experts" that make such decisions often don't know the difference between a smeltery and a steel mill, knocking down once famous and innovative works because there is "another one" in the area. As if I'd demolish a police station because there's a school in the area.

I think my favourite of his writings is this one, though only in German, a satirical text that discusses the demolition of the Cologne Cathedral. It shows the exact same phases that many industrial landmarks go through, no more use for it, many thinking that it's an eyesore to the modern city, and strange attempts to save it through alternative usage (a multimedia disco with skating rink). These plans didn't work out, so the structure was torn down, with the former gateway being "carefully conserved" so that it can be integrated into the new shopping mall that will be built here. Two gully covers in the mall's atrium will mark the position of the two towers, which is deemed to be more than enough as far as preservation of monuments goes (see any parallels?). Oh, and of course the part about the administration being ripped off by those buying the very valuable piece of land in the middle of the city for a very low price.

Makes me kinda sad that there will be almost nothing left of what was once the most important locomotive workshop of Germany. Where thousands of engines were serviced, including the iconic 103, where the first powered heads of the now world renowned ICE trains were put into operation, where the first multiphase AC electrics were serviced...