Żegluga Bydgoska () is a Polish inland shipping company based in Bydgoszcz. Its first existence dates back to 1869, when a shipping firm was established in then Bromberg.
Since August 12, 2009, it has been integrated into Wrocław's group "OT Logistics S.A.".
History Inland navigation in Bydgoszcz emerged in the 14th century, as confirmed by the earliest known written records of sailing on the Brda river.
A shipping corporation was established in 1487, in Bydgoszcz, its statute signed by Andrzej Kościelecki, then Starosta of the city. At that time, Bydgoszcz was one of the few cities of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth which had a river shipping professional association; the others were located in Gdańsk, Toruń, Kazimierz Dolny and Jarosław. Furthermore, a Helmsman guild was created in 1591, by the City Council. At the end of the 16th century, this brotherhood consisted of about 80 steersmen and helpers, called Pomagrami.
Prussian period The intensive development of Bromberg/Bydgoszcz industry in the second half of the 19th century led to an increase in shipping traffic on both Vistula and Brda rivers. In addition, water towing transport has been already used for goods and lumber since 1870, on the two rivers and along the Bydgoszcz Canal towards inland Germany.
To manage those flows, a first company using modern tugboats and barges was created on June 3, 1869, by the banker A. Aronson. On January 20, 1883, the company was renamed Bromberger Schleppschiffahrt F.W. Bumke (), then again on August 29, 1891, as Bromberger Schleppschiffahrt Aktien Gesellschaft (). Its shareholders were: Lewin Louis Aronsohn, a banker and a commercial counselor and Heinrich Dietz, Fritz Kleindienst, Karl Wenzel and Emil Werckmeister, city councilors.
The company had the concession for chain-towing and shipping on the Brda River, from the city locks to the Vistula River. It possessed: two chain tugs; "Victor", a screw steamer; a machine factory in the eastern district of "Zimne Wody"; an estate in the village of "Czersko Polskie", comprising a distillery. The seat of the company was in Bydgoszcz and its offices were located at today's 17 Grodzka Street on the Brda river bank.
During Prussian times, the company's Supervisory Board was chaired by mayors of Bydgoszcz (e.g. Hugo Braesicke, Alfred Knobloch, Paul Mitzlaff) and city councilor Heinrich Dietz. Louis Aronsohn was the deputy chairman for many years and many well-known German merchants, manufacturers and bankers from Bydgoszcz and the region were members of the board, such as Emil Werckmeister, Max Francke or Wilhelm Blumwe.
The company purchased plots of land in villages around Bydgoszcz, today integrated as city districts: "Zimne Wody", "Kapuściska", "Siernieczek" with a folwark and "Czersko Polskie" with a mill and a brickyard. It passed agreements with the city council and the Prussian State. On the one hand, in exchange to repaying 4% of its profits to the city, the shipping firm took over the taxing rights and obligations of the municipality. On the other hand, following the contract concluded with the State Treasury, the Prussian government had to improve the condition of the waterways between the Vistula and the Oder rivers. It was also stated that two dead water branches of the river in "Zimne Wody" were to be handed out to the company. In return, the shipping enterprise was bound to establish and equip a river harbour on the left bank of the Brda river.
In 1891, the towing company opened a machine factory and a shipyard in "Zimne Wody". The factory produced, among others, steam boilers, cranes, steel structures and tow chains. The best seller product was the equipment for spirit distillery, which, by 1918, had been sold to over a thousand plants in Germany and abroad. The shipyard was manufacturing screw steamers, berlinkas and other river ships, out of wood and steel; in addition, the facility was used to repair the floating rolling stock.
In 1892, a steam brickyard and a sawmill were opened in "Czersk Polski", which at the beginning of the 20th century processed 30,000 m³ of wood. A second and larger sawmill, with a wood capacity of 55,000 m³, was built in 1899 in "Siernieczek". Both places were linked to the railway network via sidings. Besides, the company had another plant, a steam distillery, in "Czersk Polski". Lastly, the firm possessed several farms, in "Siernieczek" (1 farm), "Zimne Wody" (2 farms) and "Ściersk" (1).
In 1897, the Prussian government approved the river harbour project in "Zimne Wody", designed by the company. The same year, the Water Construction Office in Bromberg () realized large works in the river meander, allowing the shipping company to lay down a road (present day Sporna street) through the newly created island (today's "Island on Zimne Wody", ) by the means of two steel bridges, hence connecting "Weg Chausse nach Fordon" with "Thornerstraβe" (today Fordońska and Toruńska streets). An oxbow lake on the Brda was identified for the location of the future port basin. Its construction took seven years (1897-1904). In addition, the scheme required to set up, among others, access railway and sidings, storage yards, warehouses for loading/unloading wagons/ships, and steam cranes. At the beginning of the 20th century, the port was able to handle up to 2,000 wagons per year.
In the 1910s, the Bydgoszcz Shipping Society built workers housing estates in "Zimne Wody", "Czersk Polski", and restaurants near the port and the machine factory (1905). The company also had its own Health Fund, which provided social benefits to its employees.
From 1905 to 1920, the firm developed further, taking over cargo shipping between Gdańsk and Bydgoszcz as well as other towns along the Vistula river up to Toruń. By 1919, a local branch was established in Gdańsk and representative offices for goods shipment were set up in Tczew, Gniew, Korzeniewo, Nowe and Świecie.
The creation and operation of the Bydgoszcz Shipping Society had an undeniable impact on boosting the industry and trade, as well as transforming the eastern city suburbs into an industrial area (i.e. today's districts: "Bydgoszcz Wschód", "Zimne Wody", "Siernieczek" and "Brdyujście").
Interwar period (1920–1939) With the takeover of Bydgoszcz back to Polish hands on January 19, 1920, the company had its name changed to Lloyd Bydgoski, Bromberger Schleppschiffahrt, Towarzystwo Akcyjne () with Polish citizens as members of the management board, such as engineer Stanisław Rolbieski. Since the city council owned 52% of the shares, the Supervisory Board was always chaired by the mayor of Bydgoszcz.
The geostrategic changes stemmed out of the Treaty of Versailles brought changes in the political boundaries, reducing the shipping traffic on the Vistula-Oder waterway. In addition most of the German employees were forced to leave the city: therefore, the company, in a dire economic situation between 1920 and 1925, had workers brought from the Greater Poland Voivodeship and Galicia. While the Lloyd's transshippment harbour, distillery and the sawmills had a low activity, the shipyard, the brickyard and the machine factory were working at full speed. The late 1920s saw rapid fluctuations in the timber demand and an increase in the water transport via the Vistula river to the detriment of the Bydgoszcz Canal and the transshipping operations of "Zimne Wody" port.
From 1923 to 1930, Bernard Śliwiński then president of Bydgoszcz, became the chairman of the Supervisory Board. His support and interventions helped the company to survive through the volatile economic climate generated by the years of inflation and the German–Polish customs war. On May 30, 1931, the shareholders adopted a resolution changing the company's name to: Lloyd Bydgoski Towarzystwo Akcyjna. The same year, the city of Bydgoszcz became the company's majority shareholder, minor shareholders being: the shipping company Lloyd Polski (16%), Karbid Wielkopolski (11%) and Berlin's company "David Francke & Söhne" (6%). In 1933, Leon Barciszewski, the last mayor of pre-war Bydgoszcz, became the chairman of the Lloyd's Supervisory Board.
Business started to improve from 1926 onwards. Lloyd Bydgoski kept a constant towing traffic of "colonial goods" (rice, tanning extracts) from Gdańsk to Warsaw, transporting on the way back (in particular from Płock and Włocławek) grain for Gdańsk. In 1926, the transshipment harbour handled 62,000 tons of coal towards Gdańsk. This year, the company opened a branch in Warsaw, followed a few years later by an agency in Poznań. In 1928, the firm sold to the city of Bydgoszcz several assets: Sporna Street, two iron bridges and irrigation fields located in "Kapuściska" and "Czersko Polskie".
The years of the Great Depression (1931–1933) stroke a heavy blow on the fragile economic balance of the company. In order to survive, Lloyd Bydgoski had to forsake many investments and ventures together with curtailing the production of its industrial plants. Thereby, the company sold the sawmill and the distillery in "Czersk Polski", while, to make matters worse, the second sawmill in Siernieczek burnt down in 1931, and lease the brickyard and the farms it owned. From 1934 on, despite the general economic lull and the increase in freight shipping, the company's financial health did not improve, since the profits were partially covering the accumulated losses, overdue taxes and social benefits.
In 1934, Lloyd Bydgoski possessed 19 ships and 17 barges, with branches in Warsaw, Gdańsk and Włocławek. His water network embraced the Brda and Vistula rivers as well as the Bydgoszcz canal. In order to adapt to market, it contracted skippers with their own barges to transport goods. In addition to freight, the shipping firm also conducted passenger transport on the Brda and Vistula rivers: on Sundays and public holidays, steam tugs were used as cruise ships.
Lloyd Bydgoski's shipment (1934-1938): YearGoods[Thousand tons]Cereals[Thousand tons]Sugar[Thousand tons] 1934 235 134 64 1935 257 155 70 1936 243 154 60 1937 172 1938 222
During the interwar period, Lloyd Bydgoski was one of the largest shipping companies in Poland, despite the financial struggles it experienced in the late 1930s.
German Occupation After the outbreak of World War II, Bydgoszcz was seized by the Wehrmacht: the company's assets were confiscated by the German Central Trust Office-East (). A receivership was launched in court but was suspended on September 3, 1942.
The main shareholder of the Society during the occupation became the company "Preussische Bergwerks- und Hütten Aktiengesellschaft" or "Preussag" from Berlin, the ancestor of today's TUI Group. The firm's name was reverted to its original Prussian one, "Bromberger Schleppschiffahrt Aktiengesellschat". In addition, only Germans were allowed to sit on the Supervisory Board, like Walter Ernst. The company had still branches in Warsaw, Poznań and Gdańsk, main offices located in Naklo, Czarnków, Ujście, Gorzów Wielkopolski and Międzychód, with representatives present in Grudziądz, Płock and Włocławek.
Within the new political order, the company's scope changed radically and concentrated anew to the east-west flow, towards Germany, as it used to be under Prussia times. To ease this process, an ambitious construction project was put up, but never completed: digging north of the Brda river a lateral channel, for 1000-tons capacity ships, bypassing the city from Osowa Góra western district to Fordon eastern district.
During this period, German motor barges traveled through the Bydgoszcz Canal and the Vistula River from Third Reich territory to East Prussia, carrying coal and other raw material. The shipping traffic was very intensive due to the use of rail transport capacity by Wehrmacht. The "Bromberger Schleppschiffahrt Aktiengesellschat" operated almost until the end of the conflict, supporting the nazi war effort.
Post World War II period (1945-1990)