Drains under Aachen (Germany) ?

The mystery is solved ! - Look here

The mystery is raised On 20 December 1998 I visited Aachen with my family and my parents. Not an exploration visit. We went for the "Weihnachtsmarkt" and the shopping. But during the shopping I stumbled upon this brochure / book: "Bache erkunden in Aachen", Hintergrunde und Materialien, Okologie-Hefte Aachen Okologie Zentrum Aachen, 1998, 73 pages Excuse the poor quality of the pictures. I scanned tem in from this rough-printed book.

The book describes the history of the brooks that run through the hilly terrain around the city. In pre-industrial times the brooks were used to drive water-mills, to supply water for cloth- and pigment-factories, to fill the fish-ponds and moats of little castles in the neighborhood and to feed fountains in the city. In industrial times, with the advent of steam, the water-mills were closed. The city expanded and many of these brooks were tunneled over. The book contains maps of the brooks and shows where the disappear underground. Here for example. The brook disappears under the tracks near the railway station and continues underground from there (at nr.3 on the map). Some of the brooks are quite small, but others seem large enough to enter. There is a chance that the orderly German waterworks have made access impossible, as in this example.

But there is at least one example that looks accessible. This is the outflow of the "Wurm", located behind the "Europaplatz". It is the biggest brook of Aachen and several other flow into it, beneath the streets of the city.

So for now that's all the information I have. Is it worth to drive three hours there and three hours back to investigate? It would be the first drains on Europe's mainland ...

Some facts that speak against it are:

• in some places the brochure says that "the brook disappears into a pipe ('Rohr')"
• in some places the brochure says that there exist overflow points between the sewers and the brooks
• sometimes the brooks run through private property or through protected nature

The mystery is discussed

I got a lot of reactions on my questions about drains under Aachen. I've put them all in here (in order of receipt):

• Ninjalicious

  Hey Petr. Put my vote down for a trip to Aachen, provided you can get someone else to come along with you. I wouldn't recommend draining by yourself, at least not your first time.

  Three hours' drive isn't too bad for some good drains, and being the first would indeed be quite an honour. The Wurm looks pretty impressive, and it sounds like you have enough leads that you can probably count on getting under in at least one or two spots.

• Johnathan Littell

  Drains. Well I've done about 12 now. Personly I'd like to look closer to home, but I presume that you already have. Maybe you can contact someone from the city council / engineers etc because the situation may have changed. From experience I can tell you that drains generally don't get opened up over time, rather they get covered up. I would not be surprised if those drains were underground by now if that book is older than about 20 years.

  They look good, but there is a bit of water in them. Be cautious about going during or after rain.

  I have to say as a last word, going is the only way you can find out if it is worth it. You may find something that will be a whole new experience to you, you may find something that you consider to be totally crap. As the saying goes, if you never never go, you'll never never know. (too many Qantas adds on TV here in NY recently - that's from their Darwin adds).

• FiL

  Rule number one with drains is that there are no promises. You wont really know whether they are worth the trip until you go up there and take a look.

  How long do the drains appear to go underground for?? How tall are they at the outlet?? How old exactly?? Drains sometimes get bigger as you head upstream, but not commonly. Probably more common in old than new drains. Drains are sometimes worth a three hour drive, I infact once went on a 24 hour bus trip from Canberra to Brisbane (1200 km with stopover in Sydney) to do some drains up there. But I knew that there were some good ones up there. What I would suggest is that you think of something else to look at as well, in case the drains are duds.

  On the subject of mainland Euro drains, has anyone had a look at Vienna drains?? Part of the film "The Third Man" is filmed in them, and looked really good.

• Stevenhagen, Ed

  Die tunnels van Aken ken ik niet. Aken is vroeger een verstevigde stad geweest en in de omgeving van de vestingwallen tref je vaak gangen aan. Maastricht heeft kilometers gangen waarvan er sommige in de leem zijn uitgegraven (mineursgangen). ook van Sittard zijn gangen bekend die in de omgeving liggen van de vroegere vestingwerken. De gangen van Aken liggen dan waarschijnlijk midden in de huidige drukke stad. Naar alle waarschijnlijkheid zijn ze dan geintegreerd in de huidige kelders... maar ik ben benieuwd

The mystery is solved by Jim Hollison - 6 June 2001

Thanks for the info on the Aachen drains! The entrance behind
Europaplatz is very easily accessible, you can walk along the sloped
edge and stay dry but bring boots to cross the ~1' of water in the
middle. It's an easy drain. I'll copy the booklet and send it back to
you today.

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© 1999 Petr Kazil - 7 February 1999