Strong (ship)
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The Strong was a Swedish rail ferry that operated in the Baltic Sea from 1931 to 1971 .
Construction and technical data
Since the ferry service on the Baltic Sea was repeatedly impaired by strong ice formation in winter and in the winter of 1928 too, the German Reichsbahn and the Swedish State Railroad Statens Järnvägar decided to procure an icebreaking freight ferry that could be used as an icebreaker and Goods ferry as well as a reserve ship on the so-called " King's Line " between Trelleborg (Sweden) and Sassnitz ( Rügen ) should serve. The two clients shared the construction and operating costs.
The ship was on 10 April 1930 the yard number 225 at the Deutsche Werke in Kiel from the stack . The final equipment took place at Lindholmens Varv in Gothenburg . The ship was 93.08 m long and 15.88 m wide and had a draft of 5.18 m . It was measured with 2459 GRT or 706 NRT and displaced 2232 tons . Two 3-cylinder steam engines from Lindholmens with 4520 hp and two screws gave it a top speed of 13.5 knots . It could accommodate up to 26 freight cars, each 10 m long , on three tracks and had space for up to 200 passengers . In 1944/45 the ship was considerably rebuilt and increased to 111.78 m in length, 5.84 m draft and 3092 GRT (706 NRT, 2715 t displacement). It also had two chimneys now. In 1951 the ship was converted from coal to oil firing.
career
The strong man was extradited to the Statens Järnvägar on January 28, 1931. Her home port was Trelleborg; there she lay in a special berth when she was off duty. On February 25, 1931, she took up service on the "Königslinie", where she joined the two Swedish ferries Konung Gustav V and Drottning Victoria , which had already been commissioned in 1910, and the two German ferries Prussia and Germany .
During the Second World War , the strong man ran into a drift mine on February 26, 1942, when she tried to bring the two ferries Drottning Victoria and Konung Gustav V through the ice line off Jasmund , and sank nine hours later at a depth of 23 m at Lohme . As a result, civil passenger traffic on the "King's Line" was stopped on February 27, 1942. On July 13, 1942, the salvage of the ship began. After it was lifted in 1943, it was first towed to Sassnitz, where the railway wagons were unloaded, and then to Malmö , where it was repaired and at the same time rebuilt and enlarged at the Kockums shipyard.
It was not until January 26, 1946, that the ship - now completely Swedish-owned and the most powerful rail ferry in the Baltic Sea region until the new four-track ferry Trelleborg - was put back into service, initially between Trelleborg and Gdynia ( Poland ). The Strong , the Drottning Victoria and the Konung Gustav V brought more than 1,300 railroad cars to Poland, which Sweden made available as a contribution to post-war reconstruction. The ferry service with Germany only started again on June 11, 1947, on the Trelleborg – Warnemünde route . After the Swedish State Railways, the Deutsche Reichsbahn and the Soviet military administration in Germany on 10./11. March 1948 on the Konung Gustav V had agreed on the resumption of ferry traffic to Sassnitz, the Starke and the two old ships of Statens Järnvägar resumed ferry traffic from Trelleborg to Sassnitz on March 16, 1948. The trips to Poland, which had only been switched to Odra Port ( Świnoujście / Swinemünde ) in February 1948 , were discontinued. From October 4, 1952 to August 17, 1953, ferry traffic to Sassnitz was diverted to Warnemünde by order of the Soviet military administration. During this time, the ship also made trips between Malmö and Copenhagen . From March 1967, the strong served the new ferry connection Stockholm - Naantali ( Finland ).
Because of their limited capacity and technical capabilities, the old two- and three-track ferries were gradually no longer able to cope with the steadily growing transit traffic on the Sassnitz – Trelleborg line. After a jointly operated ferry service had been set up again on the basis of a government agreement between Sweden and the GDR in order to appropriately share the financial burdens between the Swedish State Railways and the Deutsche Reichsbahn , the Drottning Victoria became Swedish in April 1958 with the new four-track ferry Trelleborg Staatsbahn and Konung Gustav V replaced by the new Reichsbahn ferry Sassnitz in July 1959 . The Konung Gustav V and the Drottning Victoria then only served when needed (either as a substitute for the new ships when the new ships were in dock or as reinforcement in the summer season) on their old route, while the strong one continued to sail on the "King's Line " until 1969. Then she operated the Stockholm – Naantali route.
Her last working day was December 13, 1971. In February 1972 she was sold for scrapping, and on February 10, 1972, she went on her last trip to the Ystadt shipyard .