Prins Christian (ship, 1903)
The Prins Christian was a Danish rail ferry , which in ferry traffic on the Baltic Sea first between Denmark and Germany, and later between Denmark and Sweden was used.
Construction and technical data
The ship was launched on May 16, 1903 with the hull number 94 on the shipyard of Elsinore Jærnskibs- og Maskinbyggeri in Elsinore for the Danish State Railways (DSB) from the stack . It was 86.87 m long ( length over all , 85.65 m between the perpendiculars) and 17.68 m wide and had a 4.40 m draft . The ship was measured with 1824 GRT and 686 NRT. It could carry 16-17 freight cars on two tracks with a total usable track length of 128.56 m . The passenger capacity was 950 people. Two steam engines with a total of 2200 hp enabled a top speed of 13.75 knots with two screws .
career
Pre-war period
The Prins Christian was delivered on September 18, 1903 and on October 1, 1903 at the inauguration of the Gedser – Warnemünde ferry line by the Danish King Christian IX. and the Grand Duke Friedrich Franz IV of Mecklenburg-Schwerin put into service by DSB Rederi, the ferry company of DSB. Their home port was Gedser. Together with the twin-track twin screw ship Mecklenburg of the Mecklenburg Friedrich-Franz-Eisenbahn (MFFE), it was used all year round for freight traffic and in the winter months for freight and passenger traffic, while the two paddle wheel ferries Prinsesse Alexandrine (DSB) and Friedrich Franz IV. ( MFFE) carried passenger coaches across the Baltic Sea in the summer months .
First World War
The four Danish and German ferries remained reliably in service until the outbreak of the First World War . When the war began, regular traffic was interrupted for the time being. While the German ferries were then used for war purposes on various routes between German ports to carry troops, the Danish ferries were initially withdrawn to Copenhagen . After consultation with the warring parties, the Prins Christian and the Prinsesse Alexandrine , clearly marked with a large Danish flag painted on the ship's side and the inscription "Danmark", were used again on their main route Gedser ↔ Warnemünde in 1914. At Hook Hagen, west of Gedser, a quarantine station was set up to prevent possible epidemics from being brought in.
Interwar years
In the winter of 1922/23 the Prins Christian was rebuilt and lengthened to 90.83 m. The total usable track length was expanded to 168 m and the passenger capacity to 150 people. The ship was now measured with 1901 GRT and 745 NRT. Then it was used until 1940 with its new home port of Copenhagen on the Öresund between Copenhagen and Malmö .
Second World War
In 1940 the Prins Christian was relocated back to Gedser as a reserve ship for the Gedser - Warnemünde line. During the German invasion of Denmark on April 9, 1940, she was in the process of inspections at the naval shipyard (Orlogsværftet) in Copenhagen, where she was confiscated by the German occupiers. She was ordered back to Gedser, where the Danmark , which was commissioned in 1922 , had also been captured by the Wehrmacht , and then, like the Danmark and the two German ferries Schwerin and Mecklenburg , brought further troops from Warnemünde to Gedser by shuttle service.
Even after the occupation of Denmark, the ferry connection between Warnemünde and Gedser (including passenger trains) continued to operate, although military shipments had priority. The Prins Christian was also used at times to transport German troops to Norway and Russia.
post war period
After the end of the war in May 1945, the ship was used again in regular ferry operations, now on the Great Belt between Korsør and Nyborg . In 1946 it was briefly requisitioned by the Danish Navy to bring Danish troops to Bornholm after the Soviet troops were withdrawn from the island on April 5, 1946.
When the Großenbrode – Gedser railway ferry was opened on July 15, 1951 , initially only the Danmark was available, which ran alternately from Gedser to Großenbrode or to Warnemünde. In support of this, the Prins Christian was withdrawn from the Great Belt until the new Germany of the Deutsche Bundesbahn was put into service in 1953 . The Prins Christian made its last voyage in 1954, was then launched and sold to the Petersen & Albeck company in Copenhagen in 1955 for scrapping.