Lake Constance Trajectories

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Rorschach ferry of the SBB in the last year of the Lake Constance routes in 1976.

Bodensee-Trajekte were railway ferries that were set up by the railway companies to transport rail freight cars across Lake Constance . In the heyday of the railways , they were of great importance , especially for freight transport .

prehistory

In Lake Constance shipping , traffic running parallel to the shore initially dominated. It was only when the railroad reached some port cities that the importance of the connections crossing Lake Constance increased. The grain trade played a major role in this . From 1824, various companies used steamships , the number of which rose to 28 by 1874.

A connection between the railway companies was initially only possible across the lake, since the Stahringen – Friedrichshafen and Friedrichshafen – Lindau railway lines were only completed in several stages from 1895 to 1901 on the German side . A rail connection to Bregenz in Austria and from there to Switzerland was only created with the opening of the railway in the direction of Bregenz on October 24, 1872. Until then, passengers traveling to Switzerland had to change to a Lake Constance ship to continue their journey. The goods arriving by train were loaded onto steamers (at that time combined cargo and passenger ships) or goods tugboats at the terminal stations and then reloaded into freight wagons from another railway company at the destination. These reloading processes could be saved by means of train traffic . With the opening of the Swiss Gotthard tunnel , the rail route via Lake Constance was of great importance for all railway companies.

Ferry traffic

The port station in Friedrichshafen around 1900

Initially, barges towed by steamers were used for the emerging ferry traffic. On the decks of the barges there were two parallel tracks, each of which could accommodate up to eight wagons. Loading and unloading had to be done in sections, because a complete unloading of only one of the two parallel tracks would have caused the remaining freight wagons to tip into the lake due to the barge listing. The barges were transported across the lake either in the tug of the passenger steamers or by specially deployed tugs.

Opening of individual trajectories

  • In 1869 the Royal Bavarian State Railroad started the ferry service from Lindau to Romanshorn on the Swiss bank with ferry boats that were towed by regular steamers. In 1874 they put the "Trajektschiff II", a paddle steamer, into service. It was 73 meters long and 18 meters wide. It was powered by two steam engines, each with around 290 hp. It had a tall chimney on either side. Up to 16 freight cars could be carried on two parallel tracks over the bow and stern of the ship. In addition, he could tow up to two barges. In 1923 the steamer was decommissioned and scrapped in 1928.
  • The Württemberg State Railroad, together with the Swiss Nordostbahn, opened a train service between Friedrichshafen and Romanshorn on February 22, 1869 . To this end, the first trajectory ferry was launched in Romanshorn on January 20, 1869, and carried 12,200 freight wagons in its first year of operation. This first trajectory steamer, a paddle steamer , was developed by John Scott Russell , an English engineer, but was soon recognized as a "coal eater" who consumed 600 to 720 kg of coal for a crossing. In 1883 he was taken out of service again. The ship had a chimney on each side next to the huge paddle wheels. In the middle it carried two tracks for the freight wagons, of which 18 could be carried.
  • In 1873 the ferry service between Lindau and Constance was started.
  • In 1884, after the opening of the Arlberg Tunnel, operated by Österreichische Bodenseeschifffahrt , the ferry connections from Bregenz to Constance , Friedrichshafen and Romanshorn followed.
  • Also from Ludwigshafen (ehem. Serna Tingen) wrong time, a ferry -Fähre. The siding and a crane can still be seen at the port today.

Trajektbetrieb

After closing the gap on the northern shore of the lake, cost calculations were made for the ferry traffic. It turned out that the transport by ships was twice as expensive as transport by rail around the lake. However, since the single-track belt railway could not accommodate the additional traffic and the trajectory was even faster (too much time was lost due to the two-time border clearance via Bregenz to Switzerland), the trajectory traffic remained. So they worked on improving the ferry service between the two world wars . The port facilities were expanded and the trajectory bridges were equipped with electrical controls. In 1929 the Deutsche Reichsbahn Gesellschaft , which from 1920 was also under the control of all ferry traffic on Lake Constance, put the "Schussen" ferry into operation. The ship was powered by two diesel engines and was able to bring ten freight cars across the lake on two parallel tracks. This ferry could now also carry cars. Together with the rebuilt tracks at the port of Friedrichshafen, the new port station was opened on March 7, 1933 . Today it houses the Zeppelin Museum .

Adjustment of the trajectories

Friedrichshafen harbor station from 1933 to the present day: Zeppelin Museum
  • The connection between Lindau and Konstanz was discontinued in 1899 as the first trajectory, the previously provided transport service was taken over by the Bodenseegürtelbahn.
  • The Konstanz – Bregenz connection was discontinued with the introduction of the summer timetable on May 1, 1917.
  • In 1934, 34,000 wagons were transferred on the Lindau – Romanshorn connection. However, the train service was discontinued in 1938 (soon after the "Anschluss" of Austria to the German Reich), as one of the two border clearances was no longer applicable and rail transport to Switzerland was cheaper and now also faster.
  • During the Second World War , the ferry traffic was idle.
  • On May 15, 1949, at the urging of Switzerland, the ferry service on the Friedrichshafen - Romanshorn connection was resumed. By the time it was finally stopped on May 29, 1976, 663,232 freight wagons had been transported across Lake Constance.

Overview of the trajectory connections

connection opened set annotation
Lindau - Romanshorn 1869 1939 interrupted in the First World War
Romanshorn - Friedrichshafen 1869 1976 interrupted in the First and Second World Wars
Bregenz – Constance 1884 1917
Lindau – Constance 1873 1899
Bregenz – Romanshorn 1884 1915
Bregenz – Friedrichshafen 1884 1913

Ships

Towed train with a barge, presumably before Lindau

Trajectory traffic on Lake Constance began in 1869 on the Friedrichshafen - Romanshorn route with a trajectory steamer. In addition, in the same year, the Bavarian State Railways operated non-powered barges on the Lindau - Romanshorn route. From 1929 motor-driven trajectory ships were used to transport goods wagons or motor vehicles.

Driveless barges

In order to increase the transport capacity, all regional and state railways use non-powered barges. Specifically, these were the three trajectory barges I, II and III (1869) in the home port of Lindau, the trajectory barges Ludwigshafen (1872) and Baden (1893) in the home port of Konstanz, and the trajectory barges in Friedrichshafen Tr. I (1877) and Tr. II (1885) with the screw steamer Buchhorn (1891) , in the home port of Bregenz the barges I, II, III and IV (1885) with the screw steamer Bregenz (1885) and in the home port of Romanshorn the barges A (1884) and B (1885) . One or two trajectory barges were towed across the lake by a scheduled boat or a steam tugboat. From 1926, six trajectory barges were converted into self-propelled and motorized. A motor trajectory (M.Tr.) and a trajectory barge in tow formed a "normal unit" with 14 freight wagons.

Steam trajectories

The "coal eater"

The first Trajekt steamship was put into operation in Friedrichshafen in 1869 by the Royal Württemberg State Railways and the Swiss North-East Railway. The Englishman John Scott Russell , who created the city ​​of Schaffhausen for Switzerland as early as 1851 and who was also involved in the construction of the Great Eastern (the launch of the world's largest ship by far in 1858) was won as the designer . Like many pure work ships of that time, the ship built by Escher-Wyss , Zurich in Romanshorn had no name. Because of the enormous coal consumption of over 50 kg of coal per km, it was soon popularly known as "coal eater". The uneconomical ferry was taken out of service after a boiler damage in 1883 and scrapped in 1885.

In 1874 the Royal Bavarian State Railway received a steam train, also built by Escher-Wyss. The ferry was used on the Lindau-Romanshorn route until 1914. Due to the beginning of the First World War, it was shut down, and operations were not resumed after the war. After more than twelve years in the Lindau harbor, the ship was scrapped in Altenrhein in 1927. The two steam trajectories were the only Lake Constance ships with two chimneys.

Engine trajectories

Motorized trajectory barge of the SBB, 1954

Only two years after the Lindau steam trajectory was scrapped, the first new engine trajectory, Schussen , was put into operation in Friedrichshafen . In the 1930s, some older trajectory barges were motorized (also by SBB and DRG); some of them were still in use until 1966. Further motorized trajectories followed in 1958 with the Romanshorn and 1966 with the Rorschach . With the discontinuation of rail transport in 1976, these three double-ended ferries were converted into pure car ferries. The car ferry connection between Friedrichshafen and Romanshorn has been preserved to this day.

literature

  • When the railroad used the ship. In: Cargo aktuell. No. 5, October 2001, ISSN  1864-3167 .
  • Deutsche Reichsbahn: A hundred years of German railways. Anniversary publication for the 100th anniversary of the German railways . Ullstein, Berlin 1935 (reprint. Bahn-Verlag Schiefer, Munich 1988, ISBN 3-924969-08-6 ).
  • Data on the history of the railways in the Friedrichshafen area. http://www.kbs751.a-schaeffer.de/
  • Wolfgang Klee: Bavarian railway history. Part 1: 1835-1875. Merker, Fürstenfeldbruck 1993, ISBN 3-922404-43-X ( Bayern-Report. 1 = Eisenbahn-Journal, Archiv. 1993, 1).
  • Gerda Leipold-Schneider (Red.): Shipping on Lake Constance. From dugout canoes to catamarans. Published by the Vorarlberg State Museum . culturis, Steißlingen 2005, ISBN 3-9809773-1-5 .
  • Max Messerschmid: 100 Years of the Friedrichshafen-Romanshorn Railway Trajectory , in: Writings of the Association for the History of Lake Constance and its Surroundings , 87th year 1969, pp. 107-120 ( digitized version )
  • Hans Schlieper: Railway trajectories across the Rhine and Lake Constance. Alba, Düsseldorf 2009, ISBN 978-3-87094-369-1 , pp. 98-123.
  • Hans Schweers, Henning Wall: Railway Atlas Germany. Edition 2007/2008. Preface by Hartmut Mehdorn . Schweers & Wall, Cologne 2007, ISBN 978-3-89494-136-9 .
  • Dietmar Bönke: paddle wheel and impeller. The shipping of the railway on Lake Constance. GeraMond Verlag, Munich 2013, ISBN 978-3-86245-714-4 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Illustration in: Hundred Years of German Railways , next to p. 385.
  2. ^ Eisenbahndirektion Mainz (ed.): Official Gazette of the Royal Prussian and Grand Ducal Hessian Railway Directorate in Mainz of June 2, 1917, No. 31. Announcement No. 427, p. 181f.
  3. ↑ Dietmar Bönke, page 139
  4. ↑ http://www.bodenseeschifffahrt.de/Fhafen-Dampf/dampftrajekt1.html
  5. ↑ Klaus Kramer: John Scott Russell and the 'coal eater' - or: What connects the Friedrichshafen Trajekt with the GREAT EASTERN. In: Friedrichshafen Yearbook for History and Culture, Volume 1, 2007, Verlag Klaus Kramer, ISBN 978-3-9805874-8-8
  6. ↑ http://www.bodenseeschifffahrt.de/Lindau-Dampf/dampftrajekt2.html
  7. ↑ Construction plan of the shipyard