Ferry connection Rostock – Trelleborg

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Rostock-Trelleborg.jpg

The Rostock – Trelleborg ferry line connects the German port of Rostock with the port of Trelleborg in southern Sweden . Since 1990, motor vehicles and people have been transported on this approximately 150 kilometers (81 nautical miles ) stretch over the Kadetrinne in the Baltic Sea, and since 1994 also rail cars . This line is operated by TT-Line and Stena Line .

history

Since 1909 there has been a regular rail ferry connection between Germany and Sweden with the Königslinie . In order to keep the route as short as possible, it was set up between Saßnitz on Rügen and Trelleborg in the south of Skåne . It was operated by the state railways of the two countries ( DR and SJ ) until the 1990s and is operated by Stena Line.

The Rostock overseas port, opened in 1960, was not used for ferry traffic until the fall of the GDR . From 1903 to 1995 there was only a rail ferry connection to Gedser in Denmark from Warnemünde . Since 1962 there has been a TT-Line ferry connection between Travemünde and Trelleborg.

Because of the poor transport links to the Sassnitz harbor, alternatives were examined. In August 1990 the Swedish State Railways (SJ) opened a truck ferry connection from Trelleborg to Rostock with the ferry Saga Skåne . This was discontinued on April 19, 1991 for economic reasons.

Together with the Deutsche Seereederei Rostock (DSR) , the TT-Line opened a ferry connection for motor vehicles between Trelleborg and Rostock on January 10, 1992 under the name TR-Line. The ferries Marko Polo , Kahleberg , Winston Churchill and Diana II were used , later also Nord Neptunus and Saga Star . This means that three departures a day were initially offered. In the first twelve months, 234,000 passengers and 51,000 cars were transported, plus 6,400 caravans, 700 buses, 16,800 trucks, 5,400 trailers and 1,100 mail trailers.

On June 27, 1994, the operators of the Königslinie, the Deutsche Fährgesellschaft Ostsee (DFO) and the Swedish SweFerry, put a new railway ferry line between Rostock and Trelleborg into operation. To this end, a new ferry terminal was built in Rostock's overseas port and the Königslinien ferries Götaland and Rostock were converted. The Götaland was extended by 33.6 m; both ferries got an additional ramp on the starboard side of the bow. There were three departures in each direction, the daily freight capacity was 5800 loading meters or 360 lorries. The new route was marketed together with the Königslinie under the name HANSA FERRY .

In 1996 TT-Line took over the shares of Deutsche Seereederei Rostock and from then on operated the Rostock – Trelleborg route under the TT-Line brand. In the same year, the use of the high-speed ferry Delphin (later TT-Delphin ) for TT-Line began on this route, which reduced the travel time to just under three hours. TT-Line also used the TT-Traveler ferry .

On December 14, 1996, Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, the DFO, was the largest railway ferry in the world until then, with a track length of 950 meters and six tracks. To this end, the port in Trelleborg had been rebuilt and expanded. SweFerry also commissioned a similar large ferry, so that Skåne could go into operation in June 1998 . With a track length of 1,110 meters, it is slightly larger than its German counterpart. Both ferries are still in use on this line today. In 2016, 20,358 rail cars were transported with it.

In 1998 DFO merged with the Danish Scandlines AS to form Scandlines AG . The originally planned merger with SweFerry did not materialize. This was sold to Stena Line and traded under the name Scandlines AB . Together they now appeared under the brand name Scandlines .

TT-Line has been using the ferries Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn on this route since 2001 . Since then, the departures of TT-Line and Scandlines have been coordinated to such an extent that only one of the two shipping companies uses the route when the load is low and tickets are mutually recognized.

In 2012 Scandlines sold, among other things, the Rostock - Trelleborg route to Stena Line, which continues to operate it with the two large ferries.

Since January 2014 the TT-Line ships have been making a stopover in Rostock on the Travemünde - Trelleborg route.

Since the middle of 2014, all rail ferry traffic between Germany and Sweden has been handled on the Rostock – Trelleborg route, as no more rail cars are being hauled on the King's Line.

From April 2016 to September 2018 TT-Line and Stena Line cooperated on this route, so that tickets were mutually recognized. Together, up to six departures per day are offered in each direction. The travel time varies between six and seven hours.

From September 9, 2018, the Sassnitz ferry was in use for Stena Line between Rostock and Trelleborg in addition to its service on the Königslinie. It retired from service in April 2020. The new TT-Line ferry Marco Polo has also been used on this line since June 2020 .

Ferries

The following ships were or will be used on the Rostock – Trelleborg route. The list shows the name when used on this route, the operator, the IMO number and the whereabouts of the ship:

  • Saga Skåne ( SJ , 1990–1991, IMO 7124269, broken up in 2009)
  • Winston Churchill (TR-Line, 1992, IMO 6718233, scrapped 2004)
  • Marko Polo (TR-Line, 1992–1993, IMO 7230599, 2020 on the route Stari Grad - Split - Ancona )
  • Diana II (TR-Line, 1992–1994, IMO 7816874, 2020 as Bluefort offshore accommodation ship )
  • Kahleberg (TR-Line / TT-Line, 1992–1997, IMO 8306577, scrapped 2013)
  • Nord Neptunus (TR-Line, 1994–1995, IMO 7501297, scrapped in 2007)
  • Rostock (DFO, 1994–1998, IMO 7527887, until February 2019 as Kopernik on the Ystad - Swinoujscie route )
  • Götaland (SweFerry, 1994–1998, IMO 7229514, scrapped 2013)
  • Saga Star (TR-Line / TT-Line, 1995–2001, IMO 7931997, 2020 as Baltivia on the route Danzig - Nynäshamn )
  • Delphin / TT-Delphin (TT-Line, 1996–2004, IMO 9127576, 2020 as a power jet for the Seajets shipping company in the Aegean )
  • Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania (DFO, Scandlines, Stena Line, since 1996, IMO 9131797)
  • TT-Traveler (TT-Line, 1997–2001, IMO 8917390, 2020 as Patria Seaway s on the Karlshamn - Klaipėda - Kiel route )
  • Skåne (SweFerry, Scandlines AB, Stena Line, since 1998, IMO 9133915)
  • Tom Sawyer (TT-Line, since 2001, IMO 8703232)
  • Huckleberry Finn (TT-Line, since 2002, IMO 8618358)
  • Nils Holgersson (TT-Line, since 2014, IMO 9217230)
  • Peter Pan (TT-Line, since 2014, IMO 9217242)
  • Robin Hood (TT-Line, since 2014, IMO 9087477)
  • Sassnitz (Stena Line, 2018–2020, IMO 8705383, launched in 2020 in Uddevalla )
  • Marco Polo (TT-Line, since 2020, IMO 9019080)

literature

  • Reinhard Kramer, Wolfgang Kramer and Horst-Dieter Foerster: Between yesterday and tomorrow: The Sassnitz – Trelleborg ferry connection. Redieck & Schade, Rostock 2009, ISBN 978-3-934116-82-5 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. Success connects: 25 years Rostock-Trelleborg , ttline.com, March 1, 2017
  2. Rostock Port: Annual Statistics 2016
  3. Stena Line and TT-Line end cooperation