The operative headframe shaft of the historic Kopalnia Guido in Zabrze, with a preserved 26-metre steel trestle tower and 1927 electric winding engine, serving underground tourist routes to depths of 355 metres.
Szyb Kolejowy is the working access shaft of Kopalnia Guido, a private hard coal mine founded in 1855 by Count Guido Henckel von Donnersmarck in Zabrze. The shaft was sunk in the 1870s–1880s as the mine's second shaft, initially named Eisenbahn after the railway company that co-financed the mine. It was deepened to 342 metres by the 1890s, and a steel winding tower was built above it in 1901.
Coal production at the Guido mine ceased in 1928 following sale to the Prussian state and incorporation into the larger Königin-Luise-Grube system. The shaft complex was substantially rebuilt between 1927 and 1931, receiving a new top-shaft building and an electric winding machine manufactured jointly by AEG Berlin and Hüttenwerke Gleiwitz Malapana. Following decades as a research and experimental mine, the site was opened to tourists in 1982 and reopened in 2007 after a period of closure.
The shaft's headframe, winding-engine house, and underground workings at depths of 170, 320, and 355 metres are now part of the Muzeum Górnictwa Węglowego w Zabrzu.
Kopalnia Guido was founded when Count Guido Henckel von Donnersmarck received a mining concession on 2 October 1855. The count hoped to find coking coal on a field of 1.03 km² straddling the former villages of Dorotheendorf and Makoschau, adjacent to the already-productive state mine Königin-Luise-Grube. Sinking of the first shaft, named Barbara, began at the end of 1855 but was abandoned after around 30 metres due to quicksand and a tectonic fault encountered in 1856.
Work shifted to a second shaft, named Concordia and later Kunstschacht (ultimately renamed Guido), which opened the first working level at 80 metres. Extraction at that level of seams Reden (509) and Pochhammer (510) proceeded through the 1860s, although tectonic disturbances made conditions difficult throughout. A further partner, the Górnośląskie Towarzystwo Kolejowe (Oberschlesische Eisenbahn Gesellschaft), joined in financing the mine and provided the name for the second shaft to be sunk: the Eisenbahn shaft, known in Polish as szyb Kolejowy.
Work on the Kolejowy shaft began in the 1870s and it was brought into service around 1880. A tower, probably of masonry design, was erected above it, and a steam winding engine was installed in a brick engine house alongside a boiler room and administrative building. In 1885 the mine achieved its highest annual output, 313,000 tonnes of coal.
However, overall profitability was poor and in 1887 Count Guido sold the mine to the Prussian state mining treasury (Königlich-Preussischer Bergfiskus). It was incorporated as the southern field of the state mine Königin-Luise-Grube. State ownership brought new investment: Szyb Guido was deepened to 320 metres and Szyb Kolejowy was deepened from around 314 metres to its final depth of 336.63 metres during the early 1890s, opening the 320-metre working level.
At the turn of the twentieth century, water pumped from the Guido workings was used to power an underground hydroelectric installation. In 1904 the workings of Guido were connected underground with those of the newly built colliery Delbrück (later Kopalnia Makoszowy) to the south, and in 1912 Guido was formally merged with Delbrück. Thereafter productive extraction was conducted mainly through the Makoszowy shafts, while the Guido shafts served principally as drainage and ventilation.
A steel winding tower was erected over Szyb Kolejowy in 1901. In 1912 Guido was absorbed into Kopalnia Delbrück and coal extraction through the Guido and Kolejowy shafts effectively ended, with Guido serving the drainage function for the wider district. Production at the Guido section ceased entirely in 1928 and Szyb Guido was decommissioned.
Szyb Kolejowy lost its hoisting role and from 1928 to 1967 served only for lowering materials and timber for the remaining underground work. Between 1927 and 1931 the surface complex at Szyb Kolejowy was substantially rebuilt: a new two-storey top-shaft building in steel-framed brick construction was erected in 1929–1931 with a 26-metre steel trestle-type hoist tower, and a new engine house from 1927 was equipped with an electric winding machine — a co-production of AEG Berlin (electrical systems) and Preussische Bergwerks- und Hütten-AG, Hüttenwerke Gleiwitz Malapana (mechanical systems), installed in 1931, together with a generator, control panel, and current converter, all from 1927. After the Second World War the site was administered as Ruch Guido within Kopalnia Makoszowy.
In 1967 the former Guido mine area was transferred to the Zakłady Konstrukcyjno-Mechaniczne Przemysłu Węglowego. A research and experimental mine, Kopalnia Doświadczalna M-300, was created on the site with the purpose of testing new mining machines and equipment; working excavation of residual seam 620 at the 400-metre level took place during this period. In 1975 ownership passed to the Centralny Ośrodek Projektowo-Konstrukcyjny KOMAG.
In 1979–1980 Szyb Guido was backfilled, leaving Szyb Kolejowy as the sole active shaft. In 1982 an agreement was signed with the Muzeum Górnictwa Węglowego w Zabrzu to open part of the underground workings as a heritage attraction, and between 1982 and 1996 tourist parties were admitted. A ventilation crisis caused by decisions at neighbouring mines led to the closure of the tourist route.
In 2007, following intervention by the city of Zabrze, the mine was reopened as Zabytkowa Kopalnia Węgla Kamiennego Guido. The level-170 underground route was opened to visitors that year, level 320 in 2008, and sublevel 355 in February 2015. In April 2013 Kopalnia Guido was formally integrated with the Muzeum Górnictwa Węglowego w Zabrzu.
Szyb Kolejowy serves as the operating shaft through which visitors descend; the 1929–1931 headframe and the 1927–1931 engine house with its working electric winding machine remain in situ. Kopalnia Guido was entered in the heritage register in 1987 and was designated a Pomnik Historii as part of the Zabrze historic coal mine complex by decree of the President of the Republic of Poland on 14 July 2020. It is also an Anchor Point of the European Route of Industrial Heritage (ERIH).