Schleuse Güdingen - River Saar - Saarbrücken - Saarland - Germany - Waterway Locks, Planes and Lifts on Waymarking.com

This lock is called Güdingen and is the first encountered when travelling from France and is only 40 metres long. In typical German style it has earthing points on all metallic lockside objects like ladders and bollards. It seems over the top as I'm not aware of anyone being electrocuted in a lock. This lock also has a sign indicating how many minutes it will be until the lock is ready for the boat to leave.

The river Saar runs 73 miles from the French/German border near Saarbrücken down to Trier where it flows into the Mosel (Moselle in French/English) on the Germany/Luxembourg border. In addition to this lock it has a further six 185 metre long locks and some of them have a smaller, 40 metre long, Freycinet lock alongside to cater for the smaller péniches and pleasure boats. Although, if the large lock is being used for a larger boat, smaller boats will accompany them instead of using the smaller lock in order to save water.

When approaching a lock, a sign indicates the VHF/UKW channel that should be used when contacting the lock keeper by radio. The caller indicates their size, vessel name, direction and how far away from the lock they are.

The locks are controlled by traffic lights with two green lights indicating the lock is ready, a green and a red indicating it is being prepared and two red lights indicating that the lock is being used in the opposite direction and the boat should wait. If four red lights are shown then the lock is out of service.

Some of the locks have a boom just before the gates which is lowered for the large boats to prevent them going forwards onto the gates and causing damage.

It is a busy commercial route that was originally used to transport coal upstream and iron ore downstream. Remains of blast furnaces can still be seen and the coal trade is still in existence with several coal ports on the river side. Boats up to 180 metres long are often seen on the river, the most northerly destination being the large port at Dillingen which is just downstream of Saarbrücken.

Waterway Name: River Saar Connected Points: The German river Saar runs 73 miles from Saarbrücken on the border with France down to the Luxembourg border at Trier where it flows into the Mosel. There are no junctions with other canals or navigable rivers on its journey. Type: Lock Date Opened: 01/01/1866 Elevation Difference (meters): 2.00 Site Status: Operational Web Site: [Web Link] Date Closed (if applicable): Not listed

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