Former Ruhr hard coal colliery in Bochum-Werne whose listed steel headframe over Schacht Arnold survives as an active mine-water pumping installation and landmark.
Zeche Robert Müser was a hard coal colliery in the Bochum district of Werne, formed in the 1920s as a combined operation (Verbundbergwerk) by the Harpener Bergbau AG from several formerly independent collieries. The undertaking took its name on 1 July 1929 when Zeche Heinrich-Gustav, together with the related workings of Vollmond and Amalia, was renamed after the long-serving chairman Robert Müser, and at the same time the collieries Caroline and Prinz von Preußen were incorporated. The origins of the operation lie in 1854–55, when the Grubenfeld Heinrich Gustav was granted and the Harpener Bergbau AG was founded, and Schacht Jacob was begun in 1855 and Schacht Arnold in 1858, the latter entering production in 1862.
Schacht Arnold was developed from 1927 as the central winding shaft, reaching a final depth of 760 m. The new combined installation, inaugurated on 11 May 1929, included a coal preparation plant, coke works with ammonia recovery, and a 126,000 m³ gasometer. Production reached 1.5 million tonnes of coking coal in 1938.
The colliery was closed on 31 March 1968, in part at the request of the city of Bochum to protect the adjacent Opel works from mining subsidence. Nearly all surface structures were cleared by around 1971; the gasometer was not demolished until May 1980. The headframe over Schacht Arnold has been a listed monument since 1990.
The shaft continues in operation for mine-water pumping on behalf of the RAG, drawing water from abandoned workings in eastern Bochum.
The history of the site begins in 1854, when the Grubenfeld Heinrich Gustav was granted for the extraction of coal and ironstone, and the Harpener Bergbau AG was established in Dortmund in 1856, taking its name from the village of Harpen (now a district of Bochum). Schacht Jacob, named after the then head of the Oberbergamt Carl Theodor Jacob, was begun in 1855 north of the Werner Hellweg. Strong water inflows of 7 m³/min hampered the sinking, but the shaft reached the coal measures at 62 m depth in 1858 and began production.
In the same year sinking began on Schacht Arnold, approximately 400 m to the south of Schacht Jacob. That shaft, named after the mining official Arnold von der Becke, entered production in 1862. In 1863 the first coke works at the site was commissioned and a rail connection to the newly opened Bergisch-Märkische Eisenbahn was established.
By 1865 around 600 miners were producing approximately 143,000 tonnes of coal annually from an initial working depth of 154 m. In 1891 the Harpener Bergbau AG acquired the adjacent Zeche Vollmond. In 1929, through the formal fusion of Heinrich-Gustav (including Vollmond and Amalia) with Caroline and Prinz von Preußen, the combined operation was renamed Zeche Robert Müser on 1 July 1929, honouring the long-serving general director of the Harpener Bergbau AG who had built the company into a major Ruhr mining enterprise between 1893 and 1914.
From 1927 Schacht Arnold was reconstructed and extended as the new central winding shaft of the consolidated colliery. The inauguration of the combined surface installation took place on 11 May 1929. The site comprised a colliery railway station, coal preparation plant, coke works with ammonia recovery, and a gasometer of 126,000 m³ capacity.
Coke production had originally been taken up in 1861; a colliery-owned power station of 20 MW capacity was also erected between 1926 and 1928. In 1938 the annual output stood at 1.5 million tonnes of coking coal. In 1955 the collieries Neu-Iserlohn and Siebenplaneten were added to the group.
Experimental trials of hydromechanical coal winning were conducted at the colliery between 1965 and 1968, but the technique did not produce the anticipated results and was discontinued. By 1966 the colliery employed approximately 4,000 workers and was producing 1.37 million tonnes of coal per year with a coke output of 874,000 tonnes. In spite of extensive remaining coal reserves, the colliery was closed on 31 March 1968.
The closure was prompted partly by the general coal industry crisis and partly by a specific request from the city of Bochum to establish a protective pillar around the Opel-Werk II/III to prevent mining subsidence damage. Following the closure, the substantial industrial complex that had dominated the eastern Bochum skyline was largely cleared by around 1971. All shafts other than Arnold and Gustav were backfilled.
The gasometer, which had remained standing under long-term gas supply contracts with a Witten glassworks, was finally demolished in May 1980. Schächte Arnold and Gustav were subsequently taken over by Deutsche Steinkohle AG for mine-water pumping, lifting groundwater from abandoned workings in eastern Bochum to prevent uncontrolled flooding of still-active mining areas elsewhere in the Ruhr. The pumped water is discharged into the Werner Teiche of the Oelbach stream, a few hundred metres north of the shaft.
From the end of 2011, heat recovered from the mine water has been used to supply the Willy-Brandt-Gesamtschule, the Von-Waldthausen-Grundschule, and the adjacent main fire station of the city of Bochum with district heating via a heat exchanger. The headframe over Schacht Arnold was listed as a protected monument in 1990. It remains standing between the Von-Waldthausen-Straße and the Straße Brandwacht in Bochum-Werne and is a station on Themenroute 16 (Westfälische Bergbauroute) of the Route der Industriekultur.
Structural engineering works to reinforce the headframe with an external support frame and load-distributing traverse have been carried out to sustain the structure for its continuing pumping function.