Gronau (Germany)

Gronau is, like Enschede, an old industrial town once thriving on the textile industry. Unlike Enschede, a lot of these factories are still standing. I guess the Germans just don't care as much about abandoned buildings.

Another feature of Gronau is the enormous shunting-yard, dating from the days when Gronau was a train station of some importance (we're talking about 50 years ago), with it's own steamtrain depot. Nowadays all but a few tracks have been removed, leaving a terrain with a lot of gravel, birch-trees and some small remains (mostly foundations) of buildings. A year ago (in 2000) it was possible to walk from Gronau to Enschede on an abandoned railroad track (see railtracking Gronau-Enschede), now it has been renovated and is used for local passenger trains.

Locomotive shed

A nicely overgrown and collapsing locomotive shed on the shunting yard of Gronau

The track is just visible. Between the rails is an inspection hole, now full of junk

One of the side rooms. Roof doesn't look too solid.

Haus Brinkmann

This is very near to the locomotive shed and across another mostly empty textile factory.

Picture taken from the overgrown shunting yard. It makes the building look even more abandoned.

Seems to have been abandoned for some time, former hotel "Brinkmann". Picture 'borrowed' from www.gronau-online.de

Unfortunately this building was demolished in 2002 to clean up the town for the "LAGA 2003".