On the disused work site of Sulzer Brothers Ltd. behind the main railway station in the hearth of Winterthur, the old assembly hall with the test beds for the large diesel engines (mainly marine engines) was demolished from January until March 2012 by Aregger AG Buttisholz, Switzerland to give way for a newbuilding.

Here many Swiss marine engineers worked or served their apprenticeship

31.01.2012: The assembly hall with the test beds for the large cross head diesel engines. Here the largest engines of the time were assembled and tested, such as the RD90 and the next generation of the RND-series with the RND105 (cylinder diameter 1050 mm). In 1988 the last engine was constructed, a stationary engine 8RNF68M for a diesel power station in the Bahamas.

31. 01.2012: The smaller work halls with the galleries behind the assembly hall are already demolished. On the right a piece of the old galleries is still seen

31.01.2012 The Diesel engine exhaust silencers

31.01.2012: A view under the floor of a gallery

27.02.2012: The large 100 ton crane is still on his tracks

08.03.2012: Half of the hall is now demolished

09.03.2012: The 100 ton crane is lifted off

09.03.2012: The first half of the crane is swung out and lowered

12.03.2012: The work is done with a powerful hydraulic cutter

12.03.2012: The hydraulic cutter attacks

12.03.2012: After 40 minutes the two parts of the flat roof are gone, approximately 12 x 20 m each side

12.03.2012: After one hour a part of the roof of about 20 x 35 m is removed

13.03.2012: A good picture of the large cutter (Manufacturer: Komatsu, Japan)

14.03.2012: The complete roof has disappeared

14.03.2012: A view of the rear part of the site, where the smaller fabrications halls were located. The small house in the back is the "Building 1834", in which Sulzer Brothers started in the year 1834

15.03.2012

15.03.2012: One of the main longitudinal beams is cut down. In about 5 minutes the cutter has cut the beam, about 1.3 m high

15.03.2012: The beam falls down

15.03.2012: The southern front will be left for integration into the new building. Manually two labourers remove small parts and wooden planks from the crane tracks

16.03.2012: The remaining south front is provisionally supported and fixed to the ground

16.03.2012

22.03.2012: The old construction is cleared of all unwanted parts and ready for restauration

On this site the new office buildings for the city administration of Winterthur will be constructed.

Note, today in a very similar way ships are demolished with hydraulic cutters. A company doing such work is Euro Euro Demolition Group B.V. in Beverwijk, Netherlands. They removed various wrecks, such as the TK BREMEN stranded off Lorient, France in December 2012. Other wrecks included the TRICOLOR (2002) and  MSC NAPOLI (2007) both sunk in the English Channel, as well as the NEW FLAME sunk off Gibraltar (2007).

SwissShips, HPS 25.03.2012