Museum Steam Pumping Station De Tuut - Appeltern

Steam pumping station De Tuut is named after the Tuut, the road on which the museum is located. The Tuut comes from ‘de Tuyt’, the name of the area behind it, which may refer to the shape of the water on which the steam pumping station is located, a cone or spout. The official name of the steam pumping station is Stoomgemaal Appeltern.

The De Tuut steam pumping station was built in 1918 as part of the modernisation plan for water management in the region, along with De Blauwe Sluis, De Leeuwensche Sluis and the Rijksgemaal. De Tuut was powered by a powerful Stork steam engine and had an impressive capacity to pump large quantities of water from the polders to the Meuse.

Today, De Tuut has been converted into a museum, where volunteers lovingly maintain the old technology. On special operating days, you can see the steam engine in action, complete with steam, the banging of the pistons and the smell of oil and water vapour. Everything runs as it did a hundred years ago, as if time has stood still.

In the museum, you will learn how important these pumping stations were for keeping the area dry. You will hear about how the machines work, the lives of the engineers, and how water management has changed over the centuries.