Into the Heart of the Ruhrgebiet: Cora’s Adventures at the 2024 Toyplosion in Castrop-Rauxel, Part 3: The Trip Home with Bonus Mineshaft Elevator Tower

Last Sunday, I attended the 2024 Toyplosion vintage toy con in Castrop-Rauxel. For the roadtrip to get there and some views of the city, see part 1 and for the con itself as well as my haul, see part 2.

By the time, I made it back to my car and had all my purchases safely stored in the trunk, it was maybe a quarter to four. The con was set to close at four PM, so I’d made the most of this adventure and I had a glorious haul to show for it.

However, before embarking on the long trip home, I made one more stop in Castrop-Rauxel. For during my quest to find an ATM, I had spotted a mineshaft elevator tower in the distance. And because mineshaft elevator towers are the iconic sight of the Ruhrgebiet, I of course wanted to visit it.

Mine Erin:

Since there is no more coal mining in the Ruhrgebiet – the last coal mine closed down in 2018 – there of course was no active mine attached to the elevator. Instead, the mineshaft elevator stood in the middle of a roundabout in an office park, looking a little forlorn.

In the middle of a roundabout in an office park rises a reminder of the Ruhrgebiet’s industrial past.

I parked the car and walked around the mineshaft elevator tower, startling a few dog walkers. Mine shaft elevator towers usually have a big sign with the name of the mine and this one was no different. And the sign on top of the tower said “Erin”.

The mineshaft elevator tower viewed from the side. Note the name “Erin” on top of the tower.

A better look at the “Erin” sign on top of the mineshaft elevator tower.

Now it’s quite common for German coalmines to have names. However, German coalmines are have names like Germania or Teutonia or Concordia or Zollverein or St. Bonifacius or Zollverein or Monopol or Heinrich Robert or Count Friedrich or Queen Elisabeth or Victoria Auguste or Sophia Jacoba or Ottilia or – if the mine was in former East Germany – Karl Liebknecht or Ernst Thälmann. Erin, however, sounds much more like an Irish maiden than a coalmine in the Ruhrgebiet.

Turns out that there is a reason for this, for the coalmine Erin was established in 1867 by William Thomas Mulvany, an Irish geologist and entrepreneur who came to the Ruhrgebiet in the 1850s in search of business opportunities that were difficult for a Catholic Irishman to access in Ireland under British rule. He wound up founding and operating several mines in the Ruhrgebiet and gave them all names relating to Ireland such as Hibernia, Shamrock and of course Erin. One of the companies he founded survived as Hibernia AG until 1970, when it was gobbled up by VEBA, not the e.on corporation. Here’s a nice profile of Mulvany from the Irish Times. I certainly did not expect Irish entrepreneurs founding coalmines in the Ruhrgebiet, which goes to show that history is a lot more complex than simple stereotypes. Though it’s also telling that as someone who’s not from the Ruhrgebiet, I know the names of the German coal and steel of the 19th century, but not Mulvany’s name. Though the city of Castrop-Rauxel named the office park around the mineshaft elevator tower after Mulvany.

William Thomas Mulvany only ran the Erin for ten years until 1877, when he went bankrupt. The mine was sold off and continued to operate under new management until the great mine dying of the 1980s. Mine Erin closed for good in 1983. Here is what it looked like the year it closed.

But even though the mines are gone, the mineshaft elevator towers – and sometimes the entire plant – remain as landmarks and reminders of the Ruhrgebiet’s industrial past. Indeed, if you’re into industrial history and architecture, the Ruhrgebiet is the place to visit.

The Erin mineshaft elevator tower seen from the rear.

Elevator wheel of the Erin mineshaft elevator.

This particular mineshaft elevator tower was built in 1953 and was the final elevator tower built at the Erin mine before its closure. In addition to the office park, much of the former premises of the Erin mine have been turned into a park. Indeed, another thing about the Ruhrgebiet which doesn’t match the stereotypes is that the Ruhrgebiet is green. Yes, the region is very densely populated, but there are also a lot of nature preserves and parks, many of them literally built on top of former coalmines, belying those (mostly American) pro-nuclear-power trolls who always scream how dangerous and toxic coal is. I got into an argument with one of those pro-nuclear-power trolls maybe a week before my Ruhrgebit excursion and he screamed at me that coal is so toxic that nothing grows there. Of course, it’s possible that coal in the US really is more toxic than coal from the Ruhrgebiet, but I still told him, “Dude, there are literally parks growing on top of former mines in the Ruhrgebiet.”

There actually is another surviving mineshaft elevator tower of the Erin mine, which dates from 1929. I did not get see this one in person, because it’s on the other side of Castrop-Rauxel, though I’ll definitely visit the next time I’m in the area, perhaps for Toyplosion 2025. Or maybe I’ll just do a day trip to the Ruhrgebiet to visit historical mineshaft elevator towers and industrial sites.

The fact that the two surviving mineshaft elevator towers of the Erin mine are on opposite sides of town also means that the Erin mine once stretched under the entire city and the ground is riddled with mine tunnels, though many of them were likely filled in for stability. It’s not just Castrop-Rauxel either – the entire Ruhrgebiet is riddled with former mine tunnels, which actually is a great premise for a horror story about things living down there in the dark, surviving and even thriving after the humans have gone.

Bakery Geiping

After my excursion to the Erin mineshaft elevator tower, I finally embarked on the trip home. However, it had been a long day and I had barely driven back onto the Autobahn that it occurred to me that I’d really like a cup of coffee and a piece of cake to fortify myself for the trip ahead. There was coffee available at the con, but the other attendants said it was bad and expensive, so I didn’t get any coffee there, but planned to stop somewhere on the way home.

There was only one problem. Cafés and bakeries in Germany usually close at five or six PM and it was almost half past four PM by now. Which meant that if I wanted a cup of coffee and a piece of cake, I needed to find a bakery café now or I would be stuck with the underwhelming service stations and Autohöfe along the highway.

So I left the Autobahn at the next exit, which happened to be called Dortmund-Lanstrop, and checked Google Maps for the nearest open bakery. Turned out that even thought the exit was called Dortmund-Lanstrop, the city of Dortmund was actually quite a way off, which is a common issue with German highway exits. Instead, the nearest town was called Lünen. And yes, they used to have a coalmine and still have a mineshaft elevator tower and a really interesting one, too, though I didn’t visit it, because I didn’t know it existed. Honestly, I want to do an industrial history day trip to the Ruhrgebiet now.

But I was in Lünen for coffee rather than sightseeing and so I found Bakery Geiping, a bakery chain established in 1924, which has branches all over the Münsterland and northern Ruhrgebiet. The Lünen branch was located next to an Aldi store in a residential neighbourhood. I was lucky, because it was half past four and they were due to close at five PM. Since it was half an hour before closing time, the bakery no longer had any cake left, so I just had a coffee. Then, fortified and alert, I returned to the Autobahn.

Service Station Tecklenburger Land:

Even though it was Sunday, the Autobahn was a lot busier now than it had been that morning with returning holidaymakers and daytrippers as well as weekend commuters  heading back to their workplaces. There was also a fair number of trucks, for even though the Sunday truck ban on German roads lasts until ten PM, there are exceptions for trucks transporting perishable or otherwise urgent goods. And so all the trucks that supply supermarkets and gorcery stores with fresh produce were on the road again by this point.

About an hour later, while I was driving through the Münsterland and the northern edge of the Teutoburg Forest, I found myself getting tired again, so it was time for another pit stop. Dad rarely made coffee pit stops during roadtrips, at least not when I was a kid. Though as he grew older, we’d sometimes stop for an ice cream. However, I have decided for myself that if I need a pause while on the road, I will stop for a coffee, because it keeps me alert and makes me a safer driver. Besides, I’m not beholden to anybody but myself and can stop whenever and wherever I feel like it.

However, by now, all the bakery cafés were be closed, so my only option was a service station or Autohof. So I pulled into Service Station Tecklenburger Land and had another coffee as well as a giant chocolate chip cookie from the service station coffee shop.

While I was sipping my coffee and enjoying a panoramic view of the parking lot and Autobahn A1, I chanced to witness an altercation between the lady behind the counter and a bearded male customer. The service station was largely deserted, so once the male customer sat down, I used the pretext of taking my mug and plate back to the coffee counter rather than using the tray return to ask the lady behind the counter if everything was okay or if she needed help. She thanked me and said she was fine. Unruly customers are sadly part of her job.

Rastplatz Langwege-East:

After this pit stop, I was off again, headed for the 33 kilometer monster construction zone between exits Bramsche and Lohne-Dinklage. They’re widening the A1 from four to six lanes there, closing the sole gap between Hamburg and Osnabrück, where the extremely busy A1 is only four lanes instead of six. In theory, this is a very good thing. In practice, it’s a terrible hassle, especially since the construction zone is so long. Not sure why they have to do it in one go rather than splitting it up into shorter segments.

In the morning, I had passed the monster construction zone without issues or delays, because there was little traffic. Now in the early evening, there was a lot more traffic. There also was a traffic jam, because a van had broken down on the road, narrowing the already narrow highway even further. I felt sorry for the people in the van – they looked like a band or something – because they were stuck in an extremely dangerous area with nowhere else to go.

Once I finally made it through the monster traffic jam, I realised something alarming. I was getting tired again and I mean really tired. And I still had twelve kilometers or so of construction zone ahead of me. I needed a break – now – but what to do? Usually, I would have stopped at service station Dammer Berge with its striking bridge restaurant, but I’d passed that some kilometres ago.  I’d also passed exit Holdorf where there was an Autohof with a McDonalds and a Kentucky Fried Chicken. And the next exit Lohne/Dinklage, which also has an Autohof (and actually a decent restaurant that’s not a fast food chain) was still a way ahead.

So I did what my Dad always did in such situations, when he was on a long drive and found himself getting dangerously tired. I pulled into the next parking and rest area, which happened to be called Langwege-East (Langwege-West is on the other side of the A1).

Parking and rest areas are the most common and also most basic stopping points along German Autobahnen. There are parking spaces for trucks and cars, there are a few picnic tables and nowadays, there’s usually a public toilet of highly questionable cleanliness. In short, you only stop here, if you have no other choice.

So I parked my car, locked the doors, reclined the driver’s seat, set the alarm on my phone for fifteen minutes, closed my eyes and dozed for a bit, which is what Dad always did in such situations. Yes, my Dad practiced power napping well before it was a thing.

Once I opened my eyes again, I ate some of the chocolate I’d taken along as provisions. While I was munching the chocolate, I chanced to witness a bunch of young men pouring out of the back of a van to peruse the toilet at the rest area. Of course, they might have been workers on route to a job or a band on the way home from a gig, but personally I suspect they were undocumented immigrants.

Germany is currently having a moral panic about illegal immigrants who stab people and rape women. Like all moral panics, it’s silly and completely overblown, but instead of ignoring that crap and waiting for the panic to die down, our sorry excuse for a government felt the need to do something to reassure the population or at least the xenophobes among them and decided to reintroduce border controls at all German borders, blatantly violating the Schengen agreement. The border controls were set to go into effect the following day, so it would make sense for people smugglers to simply transport their human cargo on the weekend before. Not that those border controls will truly deter any undocumented immigrants or the people who make money smuggling them, because Germany has a lot of borders and a lot of border crossings and not nearly enough personnel to control all of them. All this border control initiative will achieve is annoy truckers and people who commute across the border to work, shop or go to school.

Somewhat refreshed, I set off again and drove through the last twelve kilometers or so of the monster construction zone. Should I still feel tired, I would exit the A1 at Lohne/Dinklage and have a coffee and maybe dinner at the Autohof there, which actually has a pretty good restaurant and not just fast food chains. Alternatively, I could also stop at the Autohöfe at the exits Vechta and Cloppenburg (neither of which is even remotely near the cities they’re named after) or service station Wildeshausen.

However, my power nap at Rastplatz Langewege-East and the chocolate had done their job. I wasn’t tired anymore and since it was getting dark, I decided not to stop for dinner, but head straight home.

That is, I did stop once more at a gas station approx. six kilometers from home to refuel my car, because my tank was somewhat depleted and diesel was cheap. I was home at around eight PM, where I unpacked my haul, had a cup of instant noodles for dinner and went to bed, because I was very tired.

All in all, I really enjoyed my trip to Toyplosion and will definitely go again next year. In general, I find that I enjoy the occasional road trips I’ve been going on this year and that I also enjoy exploring cities and places where I’ve never been, so expect more road trip reports in the future.