Germany (ship, 1953)
.jpg) The Germany in 1957
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The Deutschland was a combined RoRo and railway ferry of the Deutsche Bundesbahn (DB) , which was used from 1953 to 1963 on the ferry route Großenbrode ↔ Gedser and then until 1972 on the Vogelfluglinie .
Construction and delivery
In May 1951, the DB ordered a three-track ferry from Howaldtswerke-Deutsche Werft to increase ferry traffic on the Großenbrode ↔ Gedser line operated jointly with the Danish State Railways (DSB) with its own ship. The new building was christened Germany on February 21, 1953 and ceremoniously put into service on May 9, 1953 by Federal President Theodor Heuss .
Special structural feature: "Great Belt shape"
For their two most important ferry connections on the Great Belt between Nyborg ↔ Korsør and Halsskov ↔ Knudshoved , the DSB had specified structural framework conditions in order to be able to exchange the ferries used on the lines at any time as required, without the need to modify the ship itself or the ship Ferry systems should have been installed in the respective ports, which was a particularly important point in view of the track layout for the use of the railway deck. These specifications included:
- a ship's breadth of 17.70 m
- identical parameters for the angles at the inlet of the superstructures at the bow and stern
- identical parameters for the connections between the ship and the ferry bridges, the gangway for pedestrians and the land-side freight elevators for the provision of provisions
- For ships with an additional car deck: frontal approach of the ferry bridge to the ship for bow loading
- For ships with an additional car deck: both direct rear and side options for bringing ferry bridges to the ship for stern loading
For Germany , however, the specifications for the additional car deck did not apply; They also only became relevant for the DB ferry Theodor Heuss , which went into service in 1957 , when it was relocated to the Vogelfluglinie from the Großenbrode Kai ↔ Gedser connection in 1963.
Since the DSB always had the larger fleet and therefore the most ship tonnage on the route Großenbrode Kai ↔ Gedser and later also on the Vogelfluglinie Puttgarden ↔ Rødby , this position enabled them to enforce the "Great Belt form" for both lines. As a result, the DB ships were also designed in this way.
This meant that Germany would have (as well as the other DB ferries used until 1997, the Theodor Heuss from 1957, the Germany from 1972 and the Karl Carstens from 1986) both from the Großenbrode Kai ↔ line if necessary and when requested by the DSB Gedser and later withdrawn from the Puttgarden - Rødby line and can be used on the Nyborg ↔ Korsør and Halsskov ↔ Knudshoved lines operated exclusively by DSB on the Great Belt. Even a call to the ferry systems of the port of Warnemünde , which belonged to the GDR until reunification, on the Warnemünde ↔ Gedser connection operated by DSB and Deutsche Reichsbahn (DR) would have been possible, since the DSB had also established the "Great Belt form" here. In practice, however, these possibilities have never been exhausted.
commitment
The ferry Danmark of the Danish State Railways (DSB), which has been on the line since July 1951, only hauled freight wagons and motor vehicles. With the deployment of the Deutschland , not only were the daily departures tripled, but passenger trains were also transported. The "Scandinavia-Italy Express" was the first train to be moved from the Great Belt to the new ferry connection. The "Alpen-Express" and the fast "Copenhagen Express" followed.
After the construction of the Fehmarnsund Bridge and the ferry ports in Puttgarden and Rødby Færge , the ferry connection was moved to the new and shorter Vogelfluglinie. The Germany left Großenbrode for the last time on May 14, 1963, and when it came from Gedser, it entered Puttgarden for the first time. On May 24, 1963, the home port in the shipping register was changed from Großenbrode Kai to Puttgarden.
Incidents
On September 3, 1953, a failure of the machinery forced the Germany to anchor in the storm-lashed Baltic Sea for eight hours .
On October 15, 1956, before entering Gedser, the crankshaft of a diesel engine broke .
On November 11, 1957, the Germany ran aground in a north-east storm in front of the port entrance of Großenbrode and could only be towed free after 42 hours.
A collision with the coaster Denia occurred on July 4, 1965, when both ships wanted to enter the port of Rødby at the same time. At this point in time, the law of the sea was interpreted differently and it was only the investigation by the Maritime Administration that led to the creation of a clear right of way in favor of the ferries.
The worst incident occurred on July 23, 1969, when Germany collided with the Puttgardener Ostmole in thick fog. The crew and passengers were thrown through the decks without warning and several people were so seriously injured that they had to be treated in hospital.
End of the mission for the DB and whereabouts
Due to the rapidly increasing volume of traffic, the DB decided in 1969 to replace it. When the new Germany began ferry operations on June 23, 1972, the old Germany had carried more than 6 million passengers in its 19 years of service.
The Germany was at the time of decommissioning still in excellent condition. As early as August 1971, the DB had started sales negotiations with the DSB, who were very interested in the ship, but since the two state-owned companies could not agree on a purchase price, the talks were broken off. Talks with the Polish State Railways (PKP) , which wanted to use the ship for their ferry connection between Świnoujście (Swinoujscie) and Ystad , also failed. Attempts to offer the ship on the market in Spain and South Africa were equally unsuccessful. The Germany had spent one day after the phasing out on 22 June 1972 a short time to their shipyard Shipyard in Kiel and then there hung Service. The mooring costs and the effort for an emergency crew, which kept the on-board units ready for operation, had such an impact that the Germany finally in November 1972 for about 9.5 million German marks (a sum well below what the DSB had offered) the Greek Costas Spyou Latsis was sold to Piraeus and operated there as Renetta and from 1977 under the new owner Maleas Shipping Co. SA as Nisos Rodos between Piraeus and the island of Rhodes .
On June 25, 1978, on a night voyage to Rhodes with 110 passengers and 58 crew members on board, the ship caught fire from a crankcase explosion. Our own attempts to extinguish the fire were unsuccessful, and so the ship burned out completely with 28 trucks and 18 cars on board. All people on board could be rescued by two ships rushing to help. The burnt-out ferry was first laid up in Piraeus and from September 1979 was scrapped at Nafpe SA in Perama .
Web links
- Information on the ferry route from Großenbrode to Gedser (accessed on September 15, 2010)
- Information on the Vogelfluglinie (accessed on September 15, 2010)
Footnotes
- ↑ a b Carsten Watsack: Memories of the Theodor Heuss - 40 Years on the way north , Edition Osteesland, Ilsede 2001, ISBN 3-935944-00-4
- ↑ a b c d Günther Meier: The bird flight line and its ships . Koehlers Verlagsgesellschaft mbH, Herford 1988, ISBN 3-7822-0441-7
- ↑ a b c d Carsten Watsack: Puttgarden-Rødby The History of the Vogelfluglinie , Verlag Deutsche Fährschiffpublikationen, Edition Ostseeland 2000, ISBN 3-8311-0357-7
- ^ Arnulf Hader, Günther Meier: Railway ferries of the world. From the Trajekt zur Dreideckfähre , Koehler Verlag, Herford 1988, ISBN 3-7822-0393-3
- ↑ Gerhard Köhler: Our Ostsee- Fährschiffahrt , Köhler Eigenverlag, Lübeck 1987, ISBN 3-926699-01-9