Train Ferries in Europe.

Railway trains that actually go to sea are not uncommon in Europe, thanks to the utilisation that is made of the oceangoing train-ferry in maintaining rail connections between various Continental lands. The success of the Harwich-Zee-brugge train-ferry has been most conspicuous, and soon another train-ferry will link Britain with the Continent, this time having Harwich and Calais as its terminals.

Europe's first train-ferry was opened in 1872, across the Little Belt Channel at the entrance to the Baltic Sea. Since then seven other train-ferries have been opened between Denmark and the neighbouring page 63 lands of Germany and Scandinavia, the longest being that between Gjedser and Warnemunde, a distance of twenty-three miles, providing for through movement of passengers and freight between Copenhagen and other European points. This service is operated jointly by the Danish State Railways and the German Railways, and the crossing occupies just two hours ten minutes.

The Gjedser-Warnemunde ferry service employs a most interesting type of ferry-steamer, 348 feet long and 59 feet wide. The propelling machinery consists of two sets of four-cylinder triple-expansion engines, and a maximum speed of 15 knots is maintained. Eighteen goods wagons or seven passenger carriages are accommodated on two sets of tracks on an almost totally enclosed deck. Access to this deck is secured by the novel arrangement of a moveable forecastle. The bows of the vessel are hinged in such a manner as to enable them to be lifted right back to form an archway through which the railway vehicles travel. The ferry gives accommodation for 800 passengers.

At Marton Junction, North IsLand, New Zealand.
(Rly. Publicity photo.)
The Auckland-Wellington express, with seventeen cars and two mail vans, hauled by two Ab locomotives.