In Brno, archaeologists uncover an 18th-century factory and historic railway turntables beneath "Little America"

Archaeologists in Brno have discovered the foundations of 18th-century industrial buildings, along with two historic railway turntables, beneath the site of a future residential building near the "Little America" railway complex on Nové sady street. The find was announced by Archaia Brno, the company conducting the excavation, on its Facebook page.

The oldest masonry uncovered belonged to the western wing of Johann Gottlieb Schäffer's manufactory. Starting in 1797, it produced fine cloth and woolen goods until the business went bankrupt in 1818. However, factory production continued at the site even after the bankruptcy, though most of the original structures were later destroyed by subsequent development.

In the second half of the 19th century, the factory was demolished and the land was split into two plots. In the eastern part still stands the industrial building known as "Little America," built between 1894 and 1897. Beneath modern development on the second plot, archaeologists found two historic turntables used for turning railway carriages.

According to Archaia Brno, both turntables were part of the warehouse belonging to Emperor Ferdinand's Northern Railway — a complex popularly nicknamed "America." At the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, this facility was considered the pinnacle of technological and logistical progress in the Austro-Hungarian Empire. It was a uniquely modern three-story building for its time, originally designed for the distribution of goods.

Both turntables were used to reverse railway cars: they allowed trains to enter directly from the external track into the warehouse's basement, while the turntables positioned opposite were already located inside the warehouse building itself.

Each turntable consists of a circular concrete base nearly seven meters in diameter, with sandstone blocks set around its perimeter — the level at which the rotating rail bridge once sat. According to specialists, at the center of each turntable is a sandstone block that originally held a central bearing, known as the "king pin." This supported the rail bridge itself, whose wheels rolled along a circular rail. Unfortunately, the circular rail itself has survived intact on only one of the two turntables.

The turntables fell out of use after 1947, and aerial photographs from 1953 no longer show them. It is presumed that they were buried around this time, with new railway tracks laid directly on top of them.

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Source: brnan.cz