Fehmarn Sound bridge
Encyclopedia
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
island
Island
An island or isle is any piece of sub-continental land that is surrounded by water. Very small islands such as emergent land features on atolls can be called islets, cays or keys. An island in a river or lake may be called an eyot , or holm...
of Fehmarn
Fehmarn
Fehmarn is an island and - since 2003 - a town on this island in the Baltic Sea, off the eastern coast of Schleswig-Holstein, Germany, and ca. 18 kilometers south of the Danish island of Lolland...
in the Baltic Sea
Baltic Sea
The Baltic Sea is a brackish mediterranean sea located in Northern Europe, from 53°N to 66°N latitude and from 20°E to 26°E longitude. It is bounded by the Scandinavian Peninsula, the mainland of Europe, and the Danish islands. It drains into the Kattegat by way of the Øresund, the Great Belt and...
with the German mainland near Großenbrode
Großenbrode
Großenbrode is a municipality in the district of Ostholstein, in Schleswig-Holstein, Germany. It is situated on the Baltic Sea coast, opposite Fehmarn, approx. 8 km east of Heiligenhafen. Until 1963 it had a ferry connection to Gedser in Denmark. After World War II there was no ferry...
.
Description
The 963 metres (3,159 ft) long road and rail suspended deck arch bridge together with associated earthworksEarthworks (engineering)
Earthworks are engineering works created through the moving or processing of quantities of soil or unformed rock.- Civil engineering use :Typical earthworks include roads, railway beds, causeways, dams, levees, canals, and berms...
crosses the 1300 m (4,265 ft) wide Fehmarn Sound
Sound (geography)
In geography a sound or seaway is a large sea or ocean inlet larger than a bay, deeper than a bight and wider than a fjord; or it may be defined as a narrow sea or ocean channel between two bodies of land ....
. Construction began in 1958 and the bridge was opened on April 30, 1963. The main deck is 23 m (75 ft) above the sea, which allows shipping to pass through the 240 m (787 ft) long central section. The bridge is constructed of steel and is 21 m (69 ft) wide; 6 m (20 ft) are used by Deutsche Bahn
Deutsche Bahn
Deutsche Bahn AG is the German national railway company, a private joint stock company . Headquartered in Berlin, it came into existence in 1994 as the successor to the former state railways of Germany, the Deutsche Bundesbahn of West Germany and the Deutsche Reichsbahn of East Germany...
for a single rail track, the rest for a pedestrian walkway and two-lane roadway. The two steel arches, from which the central span is suspended by cables, are braced with steel cross-beams. The arches are 248 m (814 ft) in length and reach 45 m (148 ft) above the main deck of the bridge. The bridge was designed by engineers G. Fischer, T. Jahnke und P. Stein from the firm Gutehoffnungshütte Sterkrade AG, Oberhausen
Oberhausen
Oberhausen is a city on the river Emscher in the Ruhr Area, Germany, located between Duisburg and Essen . The city hosts the International Short Film Festival Oberhausen and its Gasometer Oberhausen is an anchor point of the European Route of Industrial Heritage. It is also well known for the...
-Sterkrade. Architect Gerd Lohmer helped with the architectural design.
Route and ferry changes
At the same time as the opening of the bridge, changes were made to ferry services. The previous ferry service to the island of Fehmarn was discontinued. The service from Großenbrode Quay, Germany to GedserGedser
Gedser is a town at the southern tip of the Danish island of Falster in the Guldborgsund Municipality in Sjælland region. It is the southernmost town in Denmark. The town has a population of 809...
, Denmark
Denmark
Denmark is a Scandinavian country in Northern Europe. The countries of Denmark and Greenland, as well as the Faroe Islands, constitute the Kingdom of Denmark . It is the southernmost of the Nordic countries, southwest of Sweden and south of Norway, and bordered to the south by Germany. Denmark...
, crossing both Fehmarn Sound and the Fehmarn Belt
Fehmarn Belt
Fehmarn Belt is a strait connecting the Bay of Kiel and the Bay of Mecklenburg in the western part of the Baltic Sea between the German island of Fehmarn and the Danish island of Lolland. Ferries operated by Scandlines connect Puttgarden and Rødby on the two islands.The strait features a...
, was replaced with a new service from Puttgarden
Puttgarden
Puttgarden is a ferry harbour and a village on the German island of Fehmarn. It lies on an important route between Germany and Denmark known as the Vogelfluglinie which crosses the 18 km strait, the Fehmarnbelt, to Rødby on the island of Lolland....
(on Fehmarn) to Rødby
Rødby
Rødby is a town and a former municipality on the island of Lolland in Denmark. The former Rødby municipality covered an area of 120 km², and had a total population of 6,590...
, Denmark crossing just the Fehmarn Belt. The new bridge and ferry changes brought about a substantial time saving for both road and rail traffic along the so-called Vogelfluglinie
Vogelfluglinie
The ' or ' is a transport corridor between Copenhagen, Denmark, and Hamburg, Germany.As the Danish and German names imply, the corridor is also an important bird migration route between arctic Scandinavia and Central Europe.-Ferry link:The core of the connection is the ferry link between Rødby ...
(literally "bird flight line") from Hamburg
Hamburg
-History:The first historic name for the city was, according to Claudius Ptolemy's reports, Treva.But the city takes its modern name, Hamburg, from the first permanent building on the site, a castle whose construction was ordered by the Emperor Charlemagne in AD 808...
to Copenhagen
Copenhagen
Copenhagen is the capital and largest city of Denmark, with an urban population of 1,199,224 and a metropolitan population of 1,930,260 . With the completion of the transnational Øresund Bridge in 2000, Copenhagen has become the centre of the increasingly integrating Øresund Region...
.
Historic monument
The Fehmarn Sound bridge was declared an historic monument in 1999 by the State Office for Protection of Historical Monuments of Schleswig-HolsteinSchleswig-Holstein
Schleswig-Holstein is the northernmost of the sixteen states of Germany, comprising most of the historical duchy of Holstein and the southern part of the former Duchy of Schleswig...
in Kiel
Kiel
Kiel is the capital and most populous city in the northern German state of Schleswig-Holstein, with a population of 238,049 .Kiel is approximately north of Hamburg. Due to its geographic location in the north of Germany, the southeast of the Jutland peninsula, and the southwestern shore of the...
, and has since become a symbol of both Fehmarn and Schleswig-Holstein.
Cold War explosive charges
As the bridge was built during the Cold WarCold War
The Cold War was the continuing state from roughly 1946 to 1991 of political conflict, military tension, proxy wars, and economic competition between the Communist World—primarily the Soviet Union and its satellite states and allies—and the powers of the Western world, primarily the United States...
, six explosive vaults were embedded below the approach road on the mainland side to be used in case of invasion. Their location is given away even today by six square asphalt patches. The vaults were connected to a control point about 1 km (0.621372736649807 mi) away in Heinrichsruh.
Future
A Fehmarn Belt BridgeFehmarn Belt bridge
The Fehmarn Belt Fixed Link is an immersed tunnel that is proposed to connect the German offshore island of Fehmarn with the Danish island of Lolland...
was proposed, between Denmark and Germany, with four lanes (2+2) and double track railway. But according to the agreement between the two countries, the Fehmarn Sound bridge will remain as it is, one lane per direction and a single railway track. However, in December 2010 a tunnel was chosen as the preferred means of spanning the strait.
In the event of severe congestion a copy could be built next to it, but no replacement since it is a historic monument.