1st officer
m/s Railship I
She was scrapped in Alang, India by 2001.
m/s Railship I
Having arrived home from my vacation in Burma and Thailand it was time to get back at the grinder and I was called from the job center to urgently get to Turku port to fill in as First Officer on m/s Railship I for one round trip to Luebeck, Germany as the steady person had taken ill.
"Railship I" was originally built to take train bogies and it still could do that as the rails were still on the deck but nowadays she also took a lot of trailers and other ro-ro cargo. As it was only a round trip I did not have much time to get familiar with the ship, all I can say that she was built in Germany in a very ascetic style. Very well working tool. She was built in 1975 by Rickmers Werft in Bremerhaven, length overall 177m and DWT 8970 with rails 1307m.
She was scrapped in Alang, India by 2001.
I came across an article in Funenokagaku magazine from Vol. 42 1989-8 about the Railship I & II and copy below the Google translated text and some pictures showing her original ideas (click pictures to enlarge):
Science of Ships
Current Status and History of Major Railway Ferries
Railway Ferries of the World (4)
By Taro Kubota
West Germany-Finland Ferry
Railship is the best name for a railway ferry. It sails 540 nautical miles across the Baltic Sea from Travemünde in West Germany to Hanko at the southwestern tip of Finland.
This route was opened in 1975 and drew attention as a breakthrough in both software and hardware compared to conventional ferries.
From the software side, the idea of transporting freight cars between the West German National Railway, which has the standard gauge of European railways (1,435 mm), and the Finnish National Railway, which has the wide gauge (1,524 mm), was seen as unique. Finland, which borders the Soviet Union, has the same rail gauge, but there are obstacles to direct communication with Western Europe. Finland borders Sweden in the northern part of the Scandinavian Peninsula, but there is a difference in the gauge, and it is also unrealistic to have to make a detour of 2,000 km around the Gulf of Bothnia, north of the Baltic Sea. This was also an attempt to calculate the winter weather conditions in Finland and the loss of loading and unloading time when transporting general cargo ships. Three years after the start of freight car transport on this section, it was reported that complaints about the cargo had dropped dramatically and the processing fee was less than 10,000 marks.
From a hardware perspective, the ship was designed to be ice-strengthened in order to navigate the sea areas that freeze over in winter as a car transport ship, and at the same time, the number of freight cars that could be loaded was increased, with three car decks. This drew attention as a unique ferry ship, and influenced the design of subsequent long-distance ferries.
[Main Specifications]
Railship I Railship II
Length 170.20 186.52
LPP 166.38 174.43
Breadth 21.65 21.65
Depth (Main Deck) 13.11 7.75
Draft 6.32 6.50
Gross Tonnage 6,522 20,077
DWT 7,963 9,887
Main engine 4 engines, 2 shafts 2 engines, 2 shafts
(BHP) 20,000 21,700
Speed 20.5 18.5
Number of Cars 60 85
Crew 24 29
Passenger 12 12
Year of build 1975 1984
1979 (refit)
Railship began service in 1975, operated by a consortium of West German and Finnish companies, and in 1985, the second ship was launched, so the ships were named Railship I and II. Both ships have a passenger capacity of 12 people and are classified as roll-on, roll-off railcar cargo ships, not ferries, i.e. passenger ships.
The specifications of Railship I and II are as shown in the table. Compared to I, Railship II is about 8m longer in perpendicular length, but its gross tonnage is three times as large. This is due to major improvements to the onboard facilities and to comply with various regulations. Below, we will introduce Railship I.
▲"Railship" (picture)
Freight car transport equipment Railship transports only freight cars, and the total length of the standard gauge track inside the ship is 1,885m. It uses three decks to carry 85 freight cars. The freight cars enter and exit through the stern of the mid-level car deck. The freight cars are propelled inside the ship by the locomotive on the land side along the track of the movable pier, and are transferred to the track on the centerline of the ship by a pulley (a part of the internal track that moves parallel to the side of the ship while carrying the freight cars). Here, the central lift is driven by a moving motor car arranged on the internal track.
▲Movement on the rails inside the ship is unmanned by a small electric towing vehicle (picture)
The lift is designed to fit the rails on the two upper and lower decks, and raises and lowers the freight cars to the upper car deck or the lower deck. The freight cars that have been moved up and down are moved to the designated position by the electric transport car and the pulley on the deck. By repeating this process, the freight cars are loaded and unloaded. The time required is 3.5 hours for loading and 2.5 hours for unloading.
When the need arises to transport automobiles, a 2-ton capacity davit is installed on each side.
▲Davits (2t) for loading and unloading passenger cars are installed on both sides (picture)
The Railship travels between Travemunde and Hanko in 28 to 30 hours. The railcars transported by Railship run on a specially constructed standard gauge track to a marshalling yard near Hanko, where the bogies are replaced or the variable gauge bogies specially ordered for the Railship project are adjusted.
The cargo transported by Railship from Western Europe is mainly chemical products, agricultural machinery and spare parts, steel, etc., and the cargo from Finland is mainly timber and related products.
Railship succeeded in a unique environment. In 1978, a new ferry based on the same concept as Railship began transporting goods between Varna, Bulgaria on the Black Sea coast and Odessa in the Soviet Union.
▲ "Railship II general arrangement diagram (picture)
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