[HN Gopher] The last European train that travels by sea
___________________________________________________________________
The last European train that travels by sea
Author : 1659447091
Score : 128 points
Date : 2025-10-27 08:58 UTC (14 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.bbc.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.bbc.com)
| swiftcoder wrote:
| What a delightful technological artefact. Certainly a shame to
| lose it, even if the bridge would be more convenient/efficient in
| the long run
| AntonTrollback wrote:
| There might have been occasions where a train ferry transported
| one of those train that carry cars onboard. I like that
| thought.
| mackman wrote:
| The transit version of a turducken.
| IAmBroom wrote:
| Ferrtrainen?
| gregoriol wrote:
| I'd thought this would have been somewhere in Denmark or Norway
| ncruces wrote:
| There's a bridge between Denmark and Sweden.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oresund_Bridge
| AntonTrollback wrote:
| It used be one between Denmark and Germany. Likely that one you
| are thinking about. Canceled due to the Fehmarn Belt bridge
| construction.
| robin_reala wrote:
| If that's a new term to you, more info at
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fehmarn_Belt_fixed_link. It's a
| new submerged tunnel that's being constructed between Germany
| and Denmark, hopefully opening in 4 years time (though that's
| looking increasing unlikely at this point).
|
| I'm looking forwards to it as it'll nearly halve the
| Copenhagen <-> Hamburg train time, down to 2 hours and 20
| minutes.
| sdoering wrote:
| Meanwhile on the other side of that lovely little island:
|
| > In 2025 when the tunnel (the Fehmarn Sound Tunnel) was
| still not approved by authorities it was revealed that it
| would not be opened in 2029 as it was then planned but in
| 2032, which would delay train traffic along the new
| connection until then. Road traffic can use the old bridge.
|
| Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fehmarn_Sound_Tunnel
|
| I would bet actual money that we (as in we Germans) don't
| get that tunnel done before 2035.
| sib wrote:
| In 1989 I took the rail/ferry link traveling from Germany to
| Copenhagen (and back)... It's faster now, but not as "cool"
| mrweasel wrote:
| Denmark had an unfortunate situation about 13 years ago, where
| the only rail bridge to the northern part of the country was
| hit by a ship, cutting rail network in two. Some trains where
| stuck in the north and had to be ferried to Sweden and the take
| the trip down from Gotenburg, via Malmo and then across the
| bridge to Copenhagen, because those trains where needed to
| maintain the service level.
|
| Since then I've been wary of dismantling too much backup
| infrastructure. The rail tracks to the ferry terminal was still
| in place in this case, because they are listed as NATO
| infrastructure, still they where barely maintained.
| nemetroid wrote:
| The tracks on the Gothenburg side have since been removed, so
| even this workaround would not be possible today (they would
| have to go to Trelleborg instead).
| KurSix wrote:
| That's a fascinating bit of rail history
| mrweasel wrote:
| https://da.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jernbanebroen_over_Limfjorden
| #... See the 2012 collision, in Danish only, sorry.
| ochrist wrote:
| That's not the last European train that travels by sea. If you go
| from Sweden or Denmark towards Germany the train crosses from
| Denmark to Germany by ferry (that is until the new Femern tunnel
| is finished): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E8DPuDsYe_k
| https://femern.com/the-tunnel/fehmarnbelt-tunnel/
| detaro wrote:
| The line you mention doesn't run anymore, and hasn't since
| 2019.
| eesmith wrote:
| Its closure is also mentioned in the text: "After the 2019
| closure of the Puttgarden-Rodby service between Germany and
| Denmark and the seasonal Sassnitz-Trelleborg route linking
| Germany and Sweden in 2020, the Intercity is now the last one
| running."
| halper wrote:
| Ah, sweet memories. Grumpy German border guards boarding to
| loudly demand papers, but if you were slow to pull the ID
| card out they just kept walking. Semi-open border policy ;)
| Findecanor wrote:
| During the Cold War, the train on the Trelleborg-Sassnitz
| ferry went to West Berlin ... _through_ _East_ _Germany_
| with no getting on or off over that stretch.
|
| BTW. I was on the Hamburg-Copenhagen train on the
| Puttgarten-Rodby ferry in 2015 during the height of the
| Syrian refugee crisis. I had changed my booking to
| earlier trains because of expected delays. It and
| connecting trains were packed, as were the train
| stations, also with immigration officials and volunteers.
| Brings tears to my eyes to this day.
| ochrist wrote:
| My bad. Sorry. I see that they changed the route to go via
| Jutland because of the upcoming tunnel. So yes, the Italian
| line is probably the last one of its kind. The Danish-German
| connection will probably not be reestablished, as the new
| tunnel will replace the ferry.
| Reason077 wrote:
| Yep. I took that train, Hamburg to Copenhagen, back when it
| still ran on the the ferry. Lots of fun!
|
| The route actually does still run, of course, but it takes
| the long way around via land until the Fehmarn Belt tunnel[1]
| opens around 2029.
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fehmarn_Belt_fixed_link
| PinguTS wrote:
| You should read the whole article before claiming things.
|
| > After the 2019 closure of the Puttgarden-Rodby service
| between Germany and Denmark and the seasonal Sassnitz-
| Trelleborg route linking Germany and Sweden in 2020, the
| Intercity is now the last one running. All the rest were
| replaced by bridges or tunnels, or proved too expensive to
| maintain as demand fell in favour of air travel.
| ochrist wrote:
| Yes, sorry. I sometimes pass the connection Rodby -
| Puttgarden by car, and I have seen trains there recently. But
| they obviously don't use the ferry anymore.
| AntonTrollback wrote:
| I've been on this train. The sound of the train being pulled onto
| the ferry did wake me up to say the least. It was dark outside
| and the blinds were shut in our sleeping coach. I remember
| feeling a bit of a weight, being in bed, in a closed coach,
| inside a large train, deep inside this massive ferry with many
| floors above us. It wasn't until much later that I realized that
| the train was open-air and not that big at all. You then wake up
| a few hours later near Palermo where the train runs just by the
| ocean - that was lovely.
|
| I've also been on the second-to-last train of this type a few
| times (Snalltaget from Sweden via Denmark to Germany). That one
| also got canceled for the same reason - mega bridge construction
| (Fehmarn Belt). There, you used to get off the train to go up to
| the canteen for lunch with the truckers.
| jcattle wrote:
| In the case of the Fehmarn belt it's an underwater bridge
| though.
| tuukkah wrote:
| I think some consider the Fehmarn Belt Fixed Link to consist
| of multiple parts, as the main tunnel (Fehmarn Belt Tunnel
| proper) is between a German island and a Danish island so
| stops a bit short. On the Danish side, they rebuild the
| Storstrom Bridge, and on the German side they decided to
| build another tunnel alongside the existing Fehmarn Sound
| Bridge. So in total, one existing bridge, one rebuilt bridge,
| one short new tunnel and one long new tunnel will connect
| Germany proper to Denmark proper.
| jonp888 wrote:
| It was trains from Hamburg to Copenhagen used to run on the
| Fehmarn Ferry until the line was shut for reconstruction, they
| now run via Padborg.
|
| The Snalltaget sleeper train from Berlin to Malmo used to run
| on the ferry from Sassnitz to Trelleborg avoiding Denmark
| altogether, that stopped because the ferries don't run on that
| route any more, and the train also runs via Padborg.
| perihelions wrote:
| I'm struggling to come to terms with the depth of anti-modernity
| sentiment in the West, that it's considered normal (and not
| mortifying) to read a BBC piece praising a twenty-hour rail
| journey as a thing of "lyrical beauty", quoting authorities like
| a "philosophy researcher". Who elevated this flowery nonsense
| over the common sense of the masses of sane people, with lives
| and goals and needs and places to be?
| n4r9 wrote:
| Is continuous hurry your ideal state of civilization?
| lukan wrote:
| Is spending life time in a train your goal? I like trains. To
| get quickly, safe and comfortable from A to B. Changing to a
| ferry is ... what I would consider a one time experience, but
| I rather would have the option to go by fast train straight
| to sicily whenever I feel like.
|
| As of now, flying remains way cheaper, despite being worse
| ecological. But this won't change like that.
| Xylakant wrote:
| The time you spend on a night trains is spent sleeping.
| They deliberately don't run full pace - no one wants to
| arrive at 5 in the morning. So they slow-roll on a long
| stretch to make arrival times reasonable.
|
| Very often you can make an earlier arrival at a destination
| via night train than you can via plane - unless you fly in
| the evening before.
| lukan wrote:
| There are often distances I like to travel, far longer
| than one night. I really don't see the point in making it
| harder on purpose. There are plenty of places where
| getting there is an adventure. I like adventures. But not
| when just visiting family or alike.
| Xylakant wrote:
| Nobody is making anything harder on purpose. You can take
| a plane. But for a lot of European distances, night
| trains are perfectly good. I would love if they'd
| resurrect the night train that went to my parents place -
| I would board it on Friday 10pm to go home, be there
| Saturday for breakfast, board the train back at midnight
| on Sunday and roll into the Berlin main station in time
| to make it to work. Not a single lost minute for the
| trip, maximize time at the destination.
| lukan wrote:
| "You can take a plane."
|
| I know. But my ecological consciousness has a problem
| with that. So yes, I also like night trains. And I also
| like bridges in general for better connection. I did not
| run the numbers to see if it makes sense here or just for
| the Mafiosi (I heard that complaint a lot). I am arguing
| against the romanticed point above, keeping the ferry
| because some think it is romantic.
| ac29 wrote:
| > The time you spend on a night trains is spent sleeping.
|
| Have you ever been on a night train?
|
| I love train travel but night trains are rough since I
| find it very difficult to sleep. But, I cant really sleep
| on planes either.
| Xylakant wrote:
| Yes, I have. As I wrote in the sibling comments the last
| time just a week ago, the actual train that's being
| discussed here. I'll be again on Friday, for the return.
| I've taken multiple other night train connections before
| and in my experience, the quality depends to a large
| extend on the operator and the rolling stock. Older stock
| makes for less comfort, especially if not well
| maintained.
|
| In my experience sleeping on the train also takes a bit
| of getting used to. Then again, maybe it's really not for
| you - that's ok.
| blitzar wrote:
| "These people" just dont have the same _grindset_ as you sadly.
|
| They will never know the joy of a 4am ice water facial followed
| by 21 hours of grinding before 3 hours of sleep before another
| 4am ice water facial.
| perihelions wrote:
| "I'd prefer to spend time with my family at the end of this
| rail journey rather than spend that time contemplating the
| history-rich aesthetics of the rail carriage" isn't a
| "grindset".
|
| Transport is a *tool* for most people--a means, not an end,
| as it is for a tiny subset of travel reporters
| (overrepresented in print). It dehumanizes people to
| delegitimatize their subjective valuation of their own lives'
| priorities. Wanting to go fast, deprioritizing transport as a
| mere tool, doesn't make them defective people.
|
| High-speed rail is an awesome thing and it _weirds me out_ to
| have been shamed and mocked for advocating for it.
| n4r9 wrote:
| Please consider that your original post could also be seen
| as shaming people who appreciate the beauty of train
| journeys.
|
| Some of the best quality time I've spent with my son has
| been _during_ train journeys. Like many two-year olds he
| loves the whole experience. Watching out of the window
| while the train is moved onto a ferry would blow his mind.
| I agree that high-speed trains are marvellous; I 'm sad
| that their introduction deprives us of some rich cultural
| experiences.
| Xylakant wrote:
| We just took the train to get from Berlin to Sicily for our
| holiday and will take it back on Sunday. There's no one forcing
| you to take the train - there's plenty of airports around here.
| But night trains are - at least for some - a great way to
| travel. You boards the train a 8pm in Milano, and by the time
| you had breakfast, you're almost in Messina. Now, I wish that
| they'd refurbish the rolling stock and make the train run
| faster on the last legs, but that's fundamentally a maintenance
| and upkeep issue. The technology is perfectly fine.
| p1anecrazy wrote:
| Please share the details of the journey
| rurban wrote:
| Technology is fine, but this night train is dangerous between
| Rome and Messina. I got robbed twice. Once you are over in
| Sicily everything is fine again. We left our luggage in a
| small Sicilian town center for some hours, and nothing got
| stolen. Near Napoli it would be gone in 10m.
| rafram wrote:
| As the article states, they're planning to build a bridge. You
| can have an efficient option and a scenic/nostalgic option on
| the same route. This is just a bit of sentimentality about a
| cool train journey that might be replaced, not "anti-modernity
| sentiment."
| cbdevidal wrote:
| I enjoyed the writing but the few photos left me curious about
| the ferry transfer. 34-minute video:
|
| https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=BA_2p5RUbe8
| easyThrowaway wrote:
| The "mega bridge" is one of the most politicized and polarizing
| projects I've ever seen in my life.
|
| My family lived in Messina for a while and it seems that in the
| last 100 years no one was actually interested in building nor
| genuinely stopping the project for good, just using it to bash
| whoever is on the opposite side of the argument.
|
| - On the left it's seen as the biggest ecological issue they have
| in Italy, despite the ferry company handling the passage is a
| well known mafia-owned monopoly whose ferries leak tons of
| garbage and oil on the sea every single day.
|
| - On the right they've gone with the most ridiculous, expensive
| and unachievable version of a project in order to to make sure
| they can siphon as much money as they can before declaring that
| the project has to be stopped or whatever.
|
| Every summer I go back to my mother's family and when the topic
| comes out it's as they're basically stuck in a time loop.
| ta1243 wrote:
| Sounds very similar to HS2 in the UK
| sdoering wrote:
| Or the Fehmarn Belt tunnel (northern Germany to Denmark).
|
| Or probably most of those big infrastructure construction
| projects.
| mschuster91 wrote:
| At least this one is getting built, similar to the Brenner
| Base Tunnel in the South - the common thing tying both
| projects together is Deutsche Bahn, the federal parliament
| and the local parliaments being unable to get their asses
| together and expand the regional tracks to be able to carry
| the extended traffic that both these tunnels enable.
| cenamus wrote:
| But is Germany even deeply involved there? I thought
| construction was split between AT and IT.
| mschuster91 wrote:
| The BBT itself, no that's indeed ( _thank God_ ) not
| handled by DB.
|
| But the BBT also needs supporting infrastructure from
| Kufstein to Munich, the so called Brenner Nordzulauf [1],
| some of which (the Truderinger Spange) is also covered by
| the Ausbaustrecke 38 programme [2]. Unfortunately, the
| Brenner Nordzulauf has been hotly contested [3] with very
| good points being raised - among others, some of the
| route proposals run through nature protection reservates,
| people are skeptical of years worth of construction,
| noise, debris, rail and road blocks, and separation of
| entire areas by another rail track.
|
| [1] https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brenner-Nordzulauf
|
| [2] https://www.bahnausbau-
| muenchen.de/projekt.html?PID=29
|
| [3]
| https://www.sueddeutsche.de/muenchen/ebersberg/brenner-
| basis...
| hexbin010 wrote:
| And Berlin Airport
|
| And the Edinburgh Tram Project
|
| Future:
|
| - Heathrow Third Runway (assuming the government meddle in
| it heavily)
|
| - Lower Thames Crossing
| arethuza wrote:
| The initial phase of the Edinburgh Trams project wasn't
| great - but I suspect everyone involved _knew_ it was
| going to be difficult and it 's the approach of getting
| the project started and once started it's difficult to
| kill (see Robert Moses for that strategy!).
|
| However, it's now a good service, popular and the trams
| are probably going to be expanded to much more of the
| city?
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edinburgh_Trams
|
| Also the Queensferry Crossing bridge was built with
| relatively little fuss - there were some delays but those
| were down to some spells of very bad weather.
| hexbin010 wrote:
| As a taxpayer, I can't stomach such acceptance of
| incompetence and mismanagement and corruption in the UK,
| personally.
|
| It was a "litany of avoidable failures" as the Hardie
| report explained.
|
| It does look like a tremendous success now though (not
| financially though. A double whammy for the taxpayer).
| The ends justify the means I guess?
| arethuza wrote:
| Indeed, I wasn't trying to defend the management of the
| trams project - which did seem a farce.
|
| Mind you - the investigation into the trams itself took
| far longer than expected and cost far more than anyone
| thought it should...
| GeoAtreides wrote:
| Not sure why you added the Fehmarn Belt tunnel, there are
| no rumors or news of being mismanaged or going over the
| budget or being behind schedule.
| zeristor wrote:
| Hadn't they designed a bridge, they were getting ready to
| build it, and it was changed to a tunnel.
|
| It does make sense since tunnels won't need to closed for
| high winds like bridges do.
|
| I might have misremembered bits of this.
| IAmBroom wrote:
| You're describing a perfectly normal and healthy
| development arc.
|
| An initial study into a problem poses a preferred
| solution.
|
| Time and effort is put into deep study of the solution
| path. Unfortunately, in this case the study proves it is
| far less ideal than initially assumed.
|
| The project is switched to Plan B.
|
| Granted, sometimes this kind of early change in direction
| is for dumb or dishonest reasons, but one cannot
| perfectly know the results before the studies are
| completed.
|
| I am in rail design. We are currently designing things
| for needs in 2030-2060. The world is complicated.
| rurban wrote:
| Over budget, decades behind schedule because Germany does
| everything to rise costs and delay. First they sunk the
| bridge project, now they delay the tunnel project. See
| the Wikipedia page.
| 4gotunameagain wrote:
| It's quite interesting for southern Italians to claim that a
| bridge will be detrimental to the ecology of the region, when
| in Sicily people routinely burn their trash on the street
| because the mafia controls the garbage disposal apparently.
|
| 2025. In Europe. They burn. Their trash. On the street.
| easyThrowaway wrote:
| No, it's way worse than that. They not only control the
| garbage disposal business and regional administration, they
| physically stop you from keeping your street / neighbourhood
| / town clean...Guess how do I know.
|
| It's their "service" or no service, with some extremely
| narrow exceptions, like a very small town named Aci
| Bonaccorsi, which fought that and now they're able to keep
| their streets on an amazing level of cleaniness compared to
| nearby municipalities.
|
| Garbage disposal is the last remaining big business handled
| by the local mafia (drugs are handled by camorra nowadays)
| and they're absolutely doing anything to avoid losing that.
| NalNezumi wrote:
| Huh interesting. I overheard a conversation in a bar around
| Kabukicho, Shinjuku, Tokyo a few years ago with similar
| story.
|
| The bartender was talkingto a local bar owner, and he was
| explaining how he was trying to find another contractor for
| garbage disposal because he found the current rate
| ridiculous. Every contractor hung up on him after hearing his
| address, and he found out that yakuza had territories around
| Kabukicho and you'd get in trouble if you took a contract
| there.
|
| Interesting to hear garbage disposal being a common business
| organized crime go for. I guess there's many utilities too to
| have garbage disposal infrastructure for other illegal
| activities
| anentropic wrote:
| watch The Sopranos :)
| 5- wrote:
| or ghost in the shell
| Yeul wrote:
| Honest question. Is Sicily actually economically important
| enough for such an expensive mega bridge? To my mind it would
| make more sense to invest that money in Milan.
| rafram wrote:
| Why invest in the region that's already developed when you
| can invest in one that still has room to grow? That's the
| meaning of investment. It seems likely that Sicily is poorer,
| in part, _because of_ the lack of a bridge to the continent.
| Yeul wrote:
| But Milan is a sure bet? You know that you'll make the
| money back.
|
| Backwards regions are subsidised by the cities. Sicily can
| be made into a tourist resort for pensioners.
| BurningFrog wrote:
| The opposite angle is that investing is a well functioning
| region gives better results that investing in a corrupt and
| dysfunctional one.
|
| To figure out which angle is more correct, you need to
| consider facts about the specific regions.
| linhns wrote:
| With its potential and location and it's well worth it.
| IncreasePosts wrote:
| What would you build with $20B near Milan? Also, it's not
| like Northern Italy is forgotten when it comes to government
| investment. The Brenner Base Tunnel is being built there
| which will probably cost on the order of $15B or more.
|
| Per-capita GDP is very low for Sicily relative to other
| regions - but it still has an overall GDP of around $100B,
| which is similar to Costa Rica or Croatia. Giving it a
| car/rail connection to the mainland would be a huge boon for
| the region and Italy in general.
| xattt wrote:
| Prince Edward Island had a century-old plan that was finally
| executed in the 1990s to build a bridge to connect to mainland
| Canada (1).
|
| This is the same debate that happens each time there's a fixed
| connection to an island until the damn thing opens and people
| grow to love it.
|
| It's a pain in the arse to have to wait for the ferry, to sync
| your travel plans to ferry times, only to have to change plans
| again when the ferries break down.
|
| (1) https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/prince-edward-island/pei-
| isla...
| bombcar wrote:
| It's not just that bridge, it seems it's almost _any_ big new
| bridge that attracts all sorts of howling, even when it 's
| painfully obvious it's needed.
| psunavy03 wrote:
| Having lived the majority of my adult life in greater Puget
| Sound, the ferries are great for tourists and a pain for
| actual day-to-day travel.
| KurSix wrote:
| Feels like no one really wants a solution
| throw310822 wrote:
| > when the topic comes out it's as they're basically stuck in a
| time loop.
|
| Fellow Italian here. The whole country is stuck in a time loop.
| Have you noticed that even the crime pages of the newspapers
| are filled with articles about investigations on murders of
| twenty or thirty or even forty years ago? And that on tv,
| people debate furiously terrorist acts that took place almost
| 50 years ago- when they also don't get updates from eternally
| ongoing investigations and trials? In politics, the same
| reforms that were proposed at the beginning of the '90s are
| brought up by each new government, generating new controversy
| and division, until they're forgotten or, sometimes, rolled
| back by Italy's supreme court. These days there's even a debate
| going on about the opportunity of introducing sexual education
| in schools for 6-8 graders, when I remember we had it already
| in the late '80s.
| rob74 wrote:
| They seem to have missed one key detail in the title: this is the
| last European _passenger_ train that travels by sea - or rather,
| the last ferry crossing that carries passenger carriages (I doubt
| that they carry the engine across by ferry?). There are (AFAIK)
| several other ferry lines that carry freight carriages, among
| them the Rostock-Trelleborg line served by
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MS_Sk%C3%A5ne
| criemen wrote:
| > I doubt that they carry the engine across by ferry?
|
| I don't know about this specific instance, but the Germany-
| Denmark train-on-a-ferry carried the whole Diesel-powered
| train, engine and all. It drove onto the ferry on its own, and
| left it on its own as well.
| kibwen wrote:
| _> In August, the Italian government revived long-standing plans
| to build a vast EUR13.5bn (PS11.7bn) suspension bridge over the
| strait - one of the world 's most ambitious engineering
| projects._
|
| What makes it particularly ambitious? The strait of Messina is
| two miles across, and I don't think that even cracks the top 100
| of the world's longest bridges.
| comrade1234 wrote:
| I don't really know but looking at a depth map at the narrowest
| part it's pretty deep at 200+ meters. At another section where
| it's wider it's about 100m. Not sure where they're planning to
| build it.
| agos wrote:
| it's geologically and seismically challenging. The project is a
| single span for 3300 meters, which would make it one of the
| longest in the world of the kind.
|
| The strong presence of organized crime in the area also makes a
| lot of people uneasy about the whole deal, but that's not a
| technical issue.
| arethuza wrote:
| If you sort the list on Wikipedia by "main span length" rather
| than overall bridge length then the longest span is just over
| 2km?
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_longest_bridges
| myself248 wrote:
| Apples to appleseeds. The main span doesn't cross the entire
| gap. The main span is just the middle part, typically a small
| fraction of the overall length between endpoints or
| shorelines, however those are defined.
| arethuza wrote:
| The current design for the Strait of Messina bridge has a
| main span of 3.3km - which is quite a bit more than the
| current longest span?
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strait_of_Messina_Bridge
| rob74 wrote:
| Well, in this case, the main span will cross the entire gap
| (or at least it's planned to do it). This BBC article has a
| rendering which is higher resolution than the one in the
| Wikipedia article:
| https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c80d74v0e4lo
| IAmBroom wrote:
| Nice adaptation of the metaphor. Golf clap.
| easyThrowaway wrote:
| A tunnel would be massively easier to build, but there's strong
| political hubris and greed in keeping the original single-span
| bridge project from the early '60s.
| fph wrote:
| [delayed]
| joakleaf wrote:
| It will be by far the longest span of a suspension bridge at
| 3300 meter.
|
| The current longest is in Turkey at 2023 meter.
|
| Each of the pylons of the Messina Bridge will be around 400
| meters tall. Which is taller than the Empire State Building.
|
| The strait is too deep, with too much current and seismic
| activity to place the pylons in the water. So they have to be
| on the shore, as I understand it.
| antonvs wrote:
| Shortest summary I could quickly find:
|
| > "...building a suspension bridge of this scale poses
| significant engineering challenges. The Strait of Messina is
| known for strong winds, seismic activity, and deep waters, all
| of which complicate construction and long-term stability.
| Engineers will need to ensure the structure can withstand
| earthquakes, which aren't unheard of in the region, while
| addressing corrosion from the salty marine environment."
|
| -- https://www.iflscience.com/worlds-longest-suspension-
| bridge-...
|
| I remember reading an article, posted here on HN, that went
| into much more depth about why this was all unusually
| challenging, but I haven't found it again.
| rwmj wrote:
| On a not totally unrelated topic, this gem in Aomori Japan, well
| off the beaten track, is amazing. It's the last train-carrying
| ship that used to sail between Honshu and Hokkaido (a
| particularly dangerous stretch of sea), before they built the
| Seikan Tunnel for trains.
|
| https://en.japantravel.com/aomori/memorial-ship-hakkoda-maru...
| achairapart wrote:
| If your destination is Messina or even Catania, you can can save
| some time leaving the train in Villa San Giovanni (last stop
| before the train will be loaded into the ferry) and, literally,
| jump on the first ferry that is starting, so you save all the
| time needed to load and unload the train.
|
| No one will ask you for a ticket (no one will ask for anything,
| actually). Or at the least it was like this some twenty years ago
| when I did it.
| easyThrowaway wrote:
| ...
|
| This is also a great way to randomly arrive in Siracusa
| wondering how did you end up there, in some sort of re-
| enactment of the last Indiana Jones movie.
| achairapart wrote:
| Well, I guess I was lucky! More seriously: I just followed a
| local that suggested this, and he knew the right way but from
| what I remember, it wasn't that hard to catch the right
| ferry. And, honestly, after so many hours of train, I was
| happy to physically move around and not wait another 40+
| minutes.
| iagooar wrote:
| This summer I took the ferry from Hirtshals, Denmark to
| Seydisfjordur, Iceland. 2 full days, over 48 hours of travel
| time. And back.
|
| Relatives and friends thought my wife and I were crazy - or at
| least eccentric. Why would you waste 4 full days (+ 2 days to get
| to and from Denmark by car).
|
| Turns out, travel time is still travel. And what a beautiful time
| that was!
|
| There is no stable Internet conncetion on the ferry itself (no
| cell connection AT ALL at sea), plus you have to pay for it a
| pretty hefty fee. So from observing other people, +95% did not
| have Internet access at all.
|
| The ferry itself is not huge, it is not a cruise ship. But large
| enough to be entertaining and fun to explore. Kids had a few
| attractions, including a tiny cinema. They sold popcorn though,
| that's all kids cared about besides the Minecraft movie.
|
| For us, adults, there were a few bars, restaurants to hang out.
| Even a little library, a corner with board games, couple shops.
|
| Because people were not glued to their phones, you could actually
| meet and talk to other people, have non-trivial conversations.
| People would read books, have a sip of coffee, walk around.
|
| Not once did I get bored, not once did I not know what to do.
| Sure enough, I would pull out the iPhone from my pocket only to
| see it is completely offline. What was also fun: if I went out
| with the kids, there was no way I could let me wife know we would
| be late or any other matters. Same the other way.
|
| Life felt slower, but somehow more real?
|
| Anyway, I can only recommend a travel experience like this, at
| least once in your lifetime. For us, it became part of the
| memories we made, besides visiting Iceland itself. I can imagine
| the same being the case if you travel long distances by train.
| oulipo2 wrote:
| This summer I did Paris to Istanbul by train, through Vienna
| and Bucharest, it was wonderful!
| HWR_14 wrote:
| Was it a normal train or the famous "Oriental Express"?
| KurSix wrote:
| What you described reminds me that travel isn't just about the
| destination, it is the time in between
| gregoriol wrote:
| Can only agree on that: took 5 ferries this summer from 5 to 18
| hours, and it's almost always a very nice experience. You have
| to be ready for "rough" seas though, may be a problem for some.
| Even the wait time before getting on the ship can be a good
| time to chat with other travellers. And you see things you
| wouldn't see from land.
| codyb wrote:
| Took a train from NYC to Chicago and it was so nice. Similar
| amount of time, about two days I think all in all. And just
| rolling on the plains, got myself a bunk, was more expensive
| than the plane ride home but 25 times more enjoyable and
| fulfilling.
|
| Ditching my phone as much as possible has been the best
| decision I've ever made. Life always feels a little slower when
| you're not constantly inundated with outside noise.
|
| I still pay attention, but instead of constantly paying
| attention and doing nothing, I pay attention a good amount, and
| do things instead.
| globular-toast wrote:
| I've done a number of long distance walking holidays now. Weeks
| straight of walking every day. Pilgrims walk ~800km in ~6 weeks
| on the Camino de Santiago in Spain throughout the year. I've
| done shorter routes both in Spain and elsewhere. It's really a
| great way to switch off. Your whole life becomes the Way. How
| far do you have to walk? Where are you going to eat? Do you
| need to carry food? What's the weather looking like? Going back
| to being stationary afterwards is quite jarring actually.
| gambiting wrote:
| As a sort of counter anecdote - we took a ferry from Portsmouth
| to Bilbao once, it was also just over 2 days on the sea. But oh
| boy, I regularly take ferries from UK to Netherlands, but I've
| never seen sea as rough as this. We were pretty much stuck in
| the cabin, sea sick, for the entire two days. I decided to
| brave the neausea and attempt to go for some food, but in the
| main buffet plates were literally sliding off the tables.
|
| On the way back we decided to drive through france and skip the
| ferry.
|
| But yes, on the Newcastle to Amsterdam crossing my favourite
| thing is being completely cut off from the internet, can
| finally sit down with a book without the compulsive need to
| check my phone every 5 minutes.
| wingworks wrote:
| I took the train from Copenhagen to Stockholm a few years back.
| I remember getting on the train and then all of a sudden we
| were boarding a boat, and got kicked out of the train while
| they transited the across the ocean.
|
| I really liked it, was a cool experience, and an easy way to
| get on a boat. IDK if it's still like this. I hope it is.
|
| I had checked google maps before the trip and saw a bridge so
| figured the train would go over that, but looks like it's car
| only bridge. Was a pleasant surprise.
| jacinda wrote:
| The funny part of this is, you just described not only travel,
| but all of life prior to about 2003ish (at least in the United
| States). This is when, in my social circles, we transitioned to
| most people having cell phone access and the ability to "let
| people know if you would be late." Still a long time before
| smart phones became ubiquitous.
|
| So this was "just life" in the 90s and beforehand. The upside
| you describe was also sometimes the downside. E.g. my mother
| was traveling for work when one of my brothers was injured in a
| way that required a trip to the ER for stitches (he's fine). My
| dad was getting us all (4 kids under 7) into the car as she
| called from her hotel and he basically had to answer and say
| that we were on the way to the hospital, and she just had to
| wait for an update once we got home many hours later.
|
| And yet, I would still agree that "Life felt slower, but
| somehow more real?" and that we haven't yet found the right
| equilibrium for always being connected in a way humans were
| never able to be before. I'm glad experiences like this are
| still possible.
| macintux wrote:
| Discussions (with more than 2 comments) of the planned bridge:
|
| - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44854834
|
| - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44817863
|
| - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43427008
| kaffekaka wrote:
| At least in the past trains went by ferry also between
| Helsingborg (Sweden) and Helsingor (Denmark). Could not find if
| they have been stopped. So the Italian train might be not be
| there only one in Europe.
| drsim wrote:
| They're no more.
| globular-toast wrote:
| Since when? What have they been replaced with?
|
| I went on the train between Hamburg and Copenhagen around
| 2007. Crossed on a ferry between Puttgarden (Germany) and
| Rodby (Denmark). Looks like this was discontinued in 2019 but
| I'm not sure what replaces the Hamburg-Copenhagen link. I'm
| glad I did it, it was definitely a strange experience to
| disembark the train on to a ferry and go and stand on the
| deck as it crossed.
| jamesblonde wrote:
| I went on this train as well back in the late 1990s. It was
| a surreal experience that you get off the train on a ferry!
| tuukkah wrote:
| > Since when? What have they been replaced with?
|
| The Helsingborg-Helsingor train ferry was replaced (car
| ferries remain) by railway on the Oresund Bridge (from the
| 2011 TV series The Bridge) between the big cities Malmo,
| Sweden and Copenhagen, Denmark in 2000.
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%98resund_Bridge
|
| The Puttgarden-Rodby train ferry was replaced by a new
| longer but faster railway route via the Great Belt Bridge
| and Flensburg until the Fehmarn Belt Fixed Link is ready.
| https://www.seat61.com/trains-and-routes/hamburg-to-
| copenhag...
| jimnotgym wrote:
| I can see why this is worthwhile for a freight train, it takes a
| long time to unload goods onto a boat and offload them the other
| side. But why does it make sense for passengers? Is it just
| because they were doing it with freight already?
| throwawayffffas wrote:
| Passengers have luggage, you don't need a second train on the
| other side.
| wongarsu wrote:
| Passengers are more time-sensitive than freight. For a 20
| minute ferry crossing, having everyone and their luggage
| disembark the train, go on a ferry, disembark the ferry and
| board a train would easily double the travel time of the
| crossing. It would also be far less convenient
| KurSix wrote:
| You board a train in Milan and wake up in Sicily without ever
| having to drag your luggage across terminals, onto buses, or
| through port checkpoints. Especially for night trains, that
| seamlessness adds a kind of magic
| INTPenis wrote:
| Why don't they just maintain a separate train on the island?
| KurSix wrote:
| It's easy to frame the bridge as "progress," but it risks
| bulldozing over the kind of slow, sensory-rich travel that people
| are increasingly craving again
| davidw wrote:
| I took that train many years ago. At least back then it was
| faster to get off the train in Calabria, hop on whatever local
| ferry was next, and then grab another train in Sicily, depending
| on your destination. In my case it was Catania to visit a friend.
| jvvw wrote:
| The first ever night train I went, about 25 years ago, on was
| from Berlin to Malmo. Early morning, I woke up to the feeling of
| my bed swaying and looking out of the window realised 'hang on,
| they've put the train on a ferry'.
|
| I had no idea that trains got put on ferries, although I had been
| puzzled by the way the route on the route map crossed the sea but
| had assumed it was just to make the diagram simpler. It was quite
| a surreal thing finding myself unexpectedly on a train on a
| ferry. It was nice though as you could go and wander round the
| ferry and it was quite fun seeing it go off the ferry which had
| special train tracks on it onto the normal train tracks on the
| land.
| lisper wrote:
| This is cool, but a little crazy. Why put the whole train on the
| ferry instead of just offloading the passengers and putting them
| on the ferry?
| burkaman wrote:
| That would be much worse for passengers who can normally just
| sleep through the whole thing, it would take much longer to do
| the transfer, you'd need a larger and more complex ferry with
| bathrooms, seating, luggage storage, and more staff to deal
| with the guests, you'd need to deal with scheduling issues
| (what if you get to the other side and the train isn't there
| yet?).
|
| I have taken this train and it would have been a nightmare to
| wake up everyone at like 3am, get them and all their stuff out
| and onto the ferry, and then do it all in reverse on the other
| side. It would add at least an hour to the trip if not more.
| lisper wrote:
| > you'd need a larger and more complex ferry
|
| Don't those already exist? I don't know, but I assume that
| regular passenger ferries operate on this route, no?
|
| > it would have been a nightmare to wake up everyone at like
| 3am
|
| I presume that if one were offloading passengers onto an
| existing ferry one would not schedule the train to arrive
| during normal ferry operating hours rather than 3AM.
|
| I think the right answer here is that Sicily is bigger than I
| thought, about 100 miles across, and so the onward travel
| time can be significant, and so if you're going to offer a
| night train whose final destination is (say) Marsala then
| putting the train on a ferry in the middle of the night makes
| sense.
| globular-toast wrote:
| When I took the Germany to Denmark crossing I'm almost
| certain you weren't allowed to stay on the train. I certainly
| didn't anyway. But, yes, it still saves a lot of time
| compared to walking between train and ferry twice.
| guerrilla wrote:
| Oh that's so lame. I liked the one in Denmark. I always imagined
| it was still there and I could go again some day. Sad.
| ilamont wrote:
| I took this train or another one that crossed to Sicily in the
| early 90s. It was at night, so there wasn't much to look at while
| the mechanics of being transferred from the wharf to the boat and
| then back to land took place. But I do remember the friendliness
| of the Sicilian people on that train. I only spoke a little
| French and some high school Latin, but it was enough to have a
| basic conversation and even a few laughs.
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