exploring The - 13 Korsør Railway 25 fantastic industries

SEE WWW.25FANTASTISKE.DK The railway and the steam engine are perhaps the best symbols of industriali- sation. The railway transformed life in . Passenger and goods transportation speeded up and became more affordable, making the country smaller. Time itself changed, when it was standardised for the whole of Denmark so that the trains could run to the same timetable. Before that, there was a few minutes’ time gap between different parts of the country. Traditional trade routes were relocated, new towns and industries were mushrooming on what had once been greenfield. Denmark’s first railway was built in two stages; first came the line linking Copenhagen with in 1847, and then the tracks were extended right through to Korsør in 1856. fold here 13 // The Copenhagen-Korsør Railway

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Otto Busses Vej bells which could be sounded from the superintendent’s house 04 The roundhouse at Roskilde Station to call men out to the scene of accidents.The Yellow City In 1847, when the railway was built between Copenhagen and 01 Central Workshop contains a total of 33 40m2 terraced, 2-storey rental homes Roskilde, a modest, two-track roundhouse was constructed at Centralværkstedet for Statsbanernes Maskinafdeling, the cen- with a small front garden. the east end of Roskilde station, but it was soon obsolete. tral workshop for the Danish State Railways’ (DSB) engines, What remains of the original Roskilde roundhouse consists occupies 160,000 m2, including 30,000 m2 of buildings alone. Copenhagen – Korsør of a western section with 8 tracks from 1900 and an eastern The large engine workshop ends in a long traverser at the The succession of stations, warehouses, roundhouses, brid-­ section with five tracks from 1920. In order to facilitate access end of the site. From 1909, this was where the ges and workshops visible from the train along the line from to all the tracks, the roundhouse was, at its name suggests, locomotives and carriages were brought in for maintenance Copenhagen to Korsør makes for a fascinating journey through built in a circle around a turntable. Each track in the round- and repair. The architect Heinrich Wenck, DSB’s chief architect Danish industrial history. The first railways in Denmark were house could take the largest locomotives of the time, but with in the period 1894-1921, designed the workshop complex. built by British contracting firms who hired Danish builders to the increasing size of the locomotives, in 1920 the roundhouse Wenck designed not only stations for DSB, but also level cros- build stations such as those at Roskilde and Sorø. From the had to be extended by a further five tracks to make way for sing keeper’s lodges, central signalling posts, roundhouses, mid 1800s, two architects especially, N.P.C. Holsøe and his the new ones. housing for railway workers, warehouses and lavatory buil- successor Heinrich Wenck, made their mark on Danish railway dings. And inspired by German counterparts, he didn’t stop architecture. In 1894 Wenck replaced Holsøe as DSB’s chief Around the roundhouse is the old coal yard with its coal and there, but also designed signs, door handles, frescoes and architect, and with more than 300 buildings to his name, inclu- water cranes to supply the locomotives, together with the water chandeliers. ding Copenhagen Central Station (1904-11), he is Denmark’s purification plant from 1898 with a system for descaling the most prolific railway architect. water, and what was once the residence of the roundhouse 02 ’The Yellow City’ foreman. Today the roundhouse is a museum train workshop ’The Yellow City’, DSB’s equivalent of the Naval 03 Roskilde Station for steam locomotives. housing, is a small idyllic oasis, tucked away from the world Roskilde Station from 1847 represents the oldest railway around it. DSB employees and their families have lived here architecture in Denmark. But the architect is not known with for decades, ever since the homes were purpose built in 1909. certainty. The British engineer and entrepreneur William Most of the residents were with DSB’s auxiliary carriage ser- Radford was the contractor for the station, which is symme­ vice and were on standby in the event of derailments or other trical in appearance with its two towers. Not until 1873 were accidents. During the day, they worked in the nearby work- they topped with pyramid roofs. shops. The living rooms and bedrooms were fitted with alarm fold here

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06 Sorø Station RELATED SITES: Sorø Station was constructed in 1856 by Danish builders and the British contracting firm of Fox. Henderson & Co. In 1888- 99, N.P.C. Holsøe undertook conversions to the station, and in 59 1922, the large octagonal water tower was built – as one of the 1620 Copenhagen V largest of its kind in Denmark. The size was due to the softness www.copenhagen.dk of the local Sorø water, which made it ideal as boiler water for the railway’s steam locomotives. The Danish Railway Museum 24 07 Slagelse Station 5000 C The station in Slagelse was designed by the architect N.P.C. www.jernbanemuseet.dk Holsøe in 1891-92. It was modelled on J.D. Herholdt’s second Copenhagen central station from 1863-64 (demolished in DSB Museum Trains 1916), which in turn was inspired by Italian Renaissance buil- www.museumstog.dk dings. With its pavilions, triangular gable with a clock and its red brick, Slagelse Station is a typical Danish provincial railway station.