Train ferry

A loaded train ferry approaching the dock in Detroit, Michigan, April 1943.

Aerial view of a classification yard and two docking train ferries in Detroit, April 1943. A third ferry slip can be seen at the bottom of the photograph.

A train ferry is a ship designed to carry railway vehicles. Typically, one level of the ship is fitted with railway tracks, and the ship has a door at the front and/or rear to give access to the wharves.

The wharf (called a "slip") has a ramp which connects the railway proper to the ship, allowing for the water level to rise and fall with the tides. For an example of a specialized slip to receive railcars see ferry slip.

While railway vehicles can and are shipped on the decks or in the holds of ordinary ships, purpose-built train ferries are much quicker to load and unload, especially as several vehicles can be loaded or unloaded at once.

Examples

Australia

• Grafton, New South Wales over Clarence River pending construction of bridge, 1920s to 1930s

• The Port Lincoln division is isolated from the main system by desert and is very roundabout, and rolling stock is transferred as required by ship or by road low loaders.

Bolivia

• link from Peru

Brazil

• See Paraguay

Canada

• Newfoundland - Canada
• Prince Edward Island - Canada
• Vancouver Island - Canada
• Saint John, New Brunswick across the Bay of Fundy for Canadian Pacific Railway

China

• Zhanjiang, Guangdong and Haikou, Hainan - connects mainland with island

• Yantai in Shandong Province to Dalian in Liaoning Province - a short cut - (opening 2006)

Denmark

• Copenhagen, Denmark to Rodby with train ferry over the Fehmarn Belt to Puttgarten, Germany and then continuing to Hamburg. Route opened 1960, and runs 6 trains/day from Copenhagen.

Egypt

A ferry, though not necessarily a train ferry, links the 1435mm gauge network of Egypt and the 1067mm network of Sudan.

Georgia

• Russia to Georgia bypasses Abkhazia

Italy

• Mainland to Sicily

Japan

Japan Railways would have had train ferries to link up the main islands before these were replaced by bridges and tunnels.

New Zealand

• North Island to South Island - 2 ferries - proposal to build new South Island terminal to reduce ferry distance and time. The ferries are capable of carrying both rail and road vehicles on two separate decks.

Norway

• Historically the lake Tinnsjøen railway ferry linked Tinnosbanen and Rjukanbanen, transporting goods to and from Rjukan and the Norsk Hydro deuterium factory, as seen in the movie The Heroes of Telemark, starring Kirk Douglas. See Today's Railways #113.

Paraguay

• Link to Brazil - replaced by bridge c1985.

Peru

• Link to Bolivia.

Sudan

A ferry, though not necessarily a train ferry, links the 1435mm gauge network of Egypt and the 1067mm network of Sudan, via the Nile River.

Sweden

• Scandlines operates a railway ferry between Trelleborg, Sweden and Sassnitz, Germany. There is a daily passenger night train service between Malmö, Sweden and Berlin, Germany.

Tanzania

See Uganda.

Turkey

File:Erdeniz.jpg

Erdeniz

• Lake Van - will be replaced by railway along lake shore when traffic increases enough.
• Bosphorus - bids called in 2005 to replace with tunnel.
• Black Sea - Ilyichevsk, Ukraine to Derince, Turkey by passes a break of gauge
• M/F ERDENIZ is a train ferry that carries wagons between eregli port and zonguldak port. The vessel operates all days except sunday. The vessel is operated by ERDEMIR LOGISTICS

Uganda

A train ferry on Lake Victoria links the 1000mm gauge network of Uganda with the 1000mm gauge network of Tanzania.

Ukraine

• Black Sea - see above

United Kingdom

• Harwich to Zeebrugge. Belgium - closed in 1987
• Dover to Dunquerque, France - replaced by the Channel Tunnel

United States

• New York Cross Harbor Railroad, transferring freight cars between Jersey City, New Jersey, and Brooklyn, New York, run as needed. This ferry is operated, as rail cars with flammable and hazardous materials are not permitted in the former Pennsylvania Railroad tunnels under Manhattan and the Hudson River.
• The Alaska Railroad is only connected to the rest of the North American rail system via train ferries. The Alaska Railroad runs its own ferries from Whittier, Alaska to Seattle, Washington, and the Canadian National Railway operates its AquaTrain between Whittier and Prince Rupert, British Columbia.
• Frankfurt, Lake Michigan - defunct
• The SS Badger, which was originally built as a year-round train ferry across Lake Michigan for the Chesapeake and Ohio Railroad in 1953 is now used as a car ferry between Manitowoc, Wisconsin, and Ludington, Michigan.
• SS Milwaukee
• The S.S. City of Milwaukee, built in 1931 for the Grand Trunk Western Railroad. [1]
• Mackinac Ferry the Chief Wawatam (carferries.com) at the Straits of Mackinac connecting Michigan's Upper Peninsula and Lower Peninsula.
• Chesapeake Bay - Eastern Shore Railroad from Norfolk, VA to Cape Charles, VA

Portage railways

The opposite of a train ferry is a portage railway.

• A train ferry overcomes a lack of a land link.
• A portage railway overcomes a lack of a navigatable stretch of a river.

For example, before the Panama canal, the Panama Railway provided a link between the Atlantic Ocean and the Pacific Ocean.

Hazards of train ferries

While no train ferries (as far as it is known) have met with disaster at sea, car ferries such as the Herald of Free Enterprise, which share some of the weaknesses of train ferries, have met with disaster.

These weaknesses include:

• Trains are loaded at a rather high level, making the ship top heavy.
• The train deck is difficult to compartmentalise, so that sloshing flood water can destabilise the ship.
• The sea doors where the trains go in and out are a weakness, even if placed at the rear of the ship.
• The train carriages need to be strongly secured lest they break away and roll around.

A number of railroad carferries have been lost on the Great Lakes. These losses, though causes remain unconfirmed, were attributed to seas boarding the unprotected stern of the ship and swamping it in a severe storm. As a result, seagates were required on all new ships and required to be retrofitted on older vessels. In addition, two wooden crosslake railroad ferries were burned.

See also

• List of road-rail bridges