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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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?
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.
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.
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.
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 (Snälltåget 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.
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 Storstrøm 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.
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
> In August, the Italian government revived long-standing plans to build a vast €13.5bn (£11.7bn) 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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
> "...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."
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.
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?
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
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
At least in the past trains went by ferry also between Helsingborg (Sweden) and Helsingör (Denmark). Could not find if they have been stopped. So the Italian train might be not be there only one in Europe.
I went on the train between Hamburg and Copenhagen around 2007. Crossed on a ferry between Puttgarden (Germany) and Rødby (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.
The Helsingborg-Helsingør train ferry was replaced (car ferries remain) by railway on the Öresund Bridge (from the 2011 TV series The Bridge) between the big cities Malmö, Sweden and Copenhagen, Denmark in 2000. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%98resund_Bridge
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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 Malmö 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.
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).
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.
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.
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?
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.
"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.
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.
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.”
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
You should read the whole article before claiming things.
> After the 2019 closure of the Puttgarden-Rødby 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.
Yes, sorry. I sometimes pass the connection Rødby - Puttgarden by car, and I have seen trains there recently. But they obviously don't use the ferry anymore.
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.
Its closure is also mentioned in the text: "After the 2019 closure of the Puttgarden-Rødby 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."
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 ;)
During the Cold War, the train on the Trelleborg-Sassnitz ferry went to West Berlin ... throughEastGermany with no getting on or off over that stretch.
BTW. I was on the Hamburg-Copenhagen train on the Puttgarten-Rødby 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.
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.
What you described reminds me that travel isn't just about the destination, it is the time in between
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.
This summer I did Paris to Istanbul by train, through Vienna and Bucharest, it was wonderful!
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.
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...
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.
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.
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
watch The Sopranos :)
Feels like no one really wants a solution
Sounds very similar to HS2 in the UK
Or the Fehmarn Belt tunnel (northern Germany to Denmark).
Or probably most of those big infrastructure construction projects.
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.
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.
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.
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.
But is Germany even deeply involved there? I thought construction was split between AT and IT.
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...
And Berlin Airport
And the Edinburgh Tram Project
Future:
- Heathrow Third Runway (assuming the government meddle in it heavily)
- Lower Thames Crossing
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.
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?
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...
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.
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.
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.
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 (Snälltåget 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.
In the case of the Fehmarn belt it's an underwater bridge though.
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 Storstrøm 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.
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
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
> In August, the Italian government revived long-standing plans to build a vast €13.5bn (£11.7bn) 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.
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.
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.
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
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.
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
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
Nice adaptation of the metaphor. Golf clap.
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.
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.
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.
What a delightful technological artefact. Certainly a shame to lose it, even if the bridge would be more convenient/efficient in the long run
There might have been occasions where a train ferry transported one of those train that carry cars onboard. I like that thought.
The transit version of a turducken.
Ferrtrainen?
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?
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
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
Passengers have luggage, you don't need a second train on the other side.
At least in the past trains went by ferry also between Helsingborg (Sweden) and Helsingör (Denmark). Could not find if they have been stopped. So the Italian train might be not be there only one in Europe.
They’re no more.
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 Rødby (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.
> Since when? What have they been replaced with?
The Helsingborg-Helsingør train ferry was replaced (car ferries remain) by railway on the Öresund Bridge (from the 2011 TV series The Bridge) between the big cities Malmö, Sweden and Copenhagen, Denmark in 2000. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%98resund_Bridge
The Puttgarden-Rødby 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...
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!
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...
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
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.
...
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.
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.
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
Why don't they just maintain a separate train on the island?
I'd thought this would have been somewhere in Denmark or Norway
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 Malmö 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.
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).
That's a fascinating bit of rail history
https://da.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jernbanebroen_over_Limfjorden#... See the 2012 collision, in Danish only, sorry.
It used be one between Denmark and Germany. Likely that one you are thinking about. Canceled due to the Fehmarn Belt bridge construction.
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.
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.
In 1989 I took the rail/ferry link traveling from Germany to Copenhagen (and back)... It's faster now, but not as "cool"
There's a bridge between Denmark and Sweden.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Øresund_Bridge
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?
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.
"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.
"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.
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.
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.”
Is continuous hurry your ideal state of civilization?
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.
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.
> 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.
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.
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.
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.
"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.
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/
You should read the whole article before claiming things.
> After the 2019 closure of the Puttgarden-Rødby 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.
Yes, sorry. I sometimes pass the connection Rødby - Puttgarden by car, and I have seen trains there recently. But they obviously don't use the ferry anymore.
The line you mention doesn't run anymore, and hasn't since 2019.
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
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.
Its closure is also mentioned in the text: "After the 2019 closure of the Puttgarden-Rødby 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."
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 ;)
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-Rødby 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.