PERMANENT OUTDOOR EXHIBITION

Permanent outdoor exhibition

The permanent outdoor exhibition is located next to the Central Industrial District Museum building. Its part is a wheel loader type Ł-34, one of the Museum’s latest acquisitions. The machine, manufactured in 1984 by the Industrial Combine Huta Stalowa Wola, was constructed by engineers of the Stalowa Wola-based Research and Development Center for Earth and Transport Machinery (OBRMZiT). It is equipped with a SW 680 compression-ignition engine from Wytwórnia Sprzętu Komunikacyjnego in Mielec.

The Ł-34 loader was used to scoop, carry and load loose or lump materials, to winch sand, earth, clay, gravel, aggregate and rubble from demolition work. It could also be used to transport semi-finished construction materials, level the terrain, clear snow from yards and streets, and perform many other activities. The loader could use additional attachments, which included reinforced buckets, enlarged buckets, forks, grabs, snow plows and others. The attachments also included a winch, very useful in the military version of the loader, which, under the symbol S£-34 as a loader-pusher, was introduced into the equipment of the Engineering Forces of the Polish Armed Forces and is still in use.

Production of the Ł-34 loader at the best time reached more than 900 units per year. Just taking into account the area of the former Soviet Union, more than 17,000 units were sold. Thanks to its popularity, it remained in production for 24 years.

The facility has undergone a comprehensive renovation and is technically operational.

The exhibition will ultimately be based on three pillars – metallurgical, armaments and heavy industry-related, the symbols of which will be individual objects – historical ingots (steel castings, produced by ZP and HSW), a mock-up of a howitzer model 14/19 P, which is a symbol of the armaments production of the Stalowa Wola Steelworks, and a loader Ł-34 already on display.

The object, in the form of a massive steel ingot with a commemorative plaque describing the event of September 5, 1938, acquires special significance due to the content of the plaque indicating unequivocally that it is this exhibit that is the first steel cast in Stalowa Wola.

The 100 mm howitzer wz. 14/19 P was the flagship product of the Southern Works, the predecessor of the Stalowa Wola Steelworks, before the outbreak of World War II. The howitzer is an improved version of an earlier version designated 100 mm M.14, produced for the Austro-Hungarian army. On the basis of a copy of the howitzer’s construction documentation acquired by the Central Industrial District Museum, a complete replica of the famous cannon will be made.

The grand opening of the exhibition will take place on June 14, 2024. It was 85 years ago – on June 14, 1939 – that the Southern Works was consecrated in the presence of President Ignacy Moscicki and Minister Eugeniusz Kwiatkowski. The choice of this date is intended to remember this important event and the great social effort in the struggle for economic development.