Hi!
Duderocks5539 wrote:Ive heard someone say the Rickmers Werft's were custom made ,is that true?
AFAIK no, I try to explain it a little bit as good as I can.
Rickmers-Werft produced only five of them. None of them is still operating. Two stood in Rüsselsheim. One was dismantled in the 90ies and the other one was replaced by a ECN in 2010. (There are three videos of it in action taken by e57 michel on YT!)
Then the other three stood in Darmstadt. One of the three was dismantled completely around 12-14 years ago. The two other were converted, they put a HLS 273 on the head of the Rickmers Werft, because the HLS 273 were said to be louder.
We German siren enthusiasts do not really know why Rickmers-Werft produced only five sirens and why they ever produced sirens since they were a ship building company.
So we can only guess...
But we have do an assumption:
The federal government did a bidding to decide which company will continue building up HLS over the whole country. The bidding was neccessary because Pinsch-Bamag went bankrupt and wasn't able to produce any sirens anymore.
Rickmers-Werft and Hörmann took part in that bidding. They produced some example models, so the federal government could decide which company they take. Hörmann supposedly won the bidding and built the F71 and later its successor HLS 273.
That means Rickmers-Werft lost the bidding and quit the whole siren thing.
But I want to say it again, this is only an assumption, no confirmed informations.
Brendan W wrote:Rickmers Werft was a shipbuilding company if I am not mistaken. The whole custom thing may be a valid point, but I believe it may have been one of the main manufacturers alongside Pintsch Bamag and Hörmann.
Yep, and that is the point that makes us wonder. Nop, Rickmers-Werft was not one of the main manufacturer, those were only Pintsch-Bamag and Hörmann as you said. As I explained above, Rickmers-Werft supposedly tried to get into the siren thing and failed.
Greets from Germany!