A train ferry is a ship designed to carry railway vehicles.

Typically, one level of the ship is fitted with railway tracks, and the ship has a door at the front or rear to give access to the wharves.

The wharf (called a "slip") has a ramp which connect the railway proper to the ship, allowing for the water level to rise and fall with the tides. For an example of a specialized slip to receive railcars see ferry slip. A ferry slip is a specialized docking facility that receives a ferryboat. ...

While railway vehicles can and are shipped on the decks or in the holds of ordinary ships, purpose-built train ferries are much quicker to load and unload, especially as several vehicles can be loaded or unloaded at once.

Examples

Australia

• Grafton, New South Wales over Clarence River pending construction of bridge, 1920s to 1930s

• The Port Lincoln division is isolated from the main system by desert, and rolling stock is transferred as required by ship or by road low loaders.

Grafton is reachable by road from Sydney and Brisbane on the Pacific Highway (Highway 1) Grafton, (population 17,110), is a small city on the northern east coast of New South Wales, Australia. ... At least three rivers called the Clarence River: Australia The Clarence River flows through Australia Canada/USA The Clarence River rises in the Yukon Territory of Canada and crosses back and forth across the border several times into the U.S. state of Alaska. ... Sometimes referred to as the Jazz Age or primarily in North America as the Roaring Twenties. // Events and trends Technology John T. Thompson invents Thompson submachine gun, also known as Tommy gun John Logie Baird invents the first working television system (1925) Charles Lindbergh becomes the first person to fly... // Events and trends The 1930s were spent struggling for a solution to the global depression. ... Port Lincoln is a town at the southern extremity of the Eyre Peninsula, which is a wheat growing area of South Australia. ...

Canada

• Newfoundland - Canada
• Prince Edward Island - Canada
• Vancouver Island - Canada

Newfoundland Railway logo or herald (used 1926-1949) The Newfoundland Railway was a historic railway that operated on the island of Newfoundland and was the longest narrow gauge railway system in North America. ... Motto: Parva Sub Ingenti (The small under the protection of the great) Other Canadian provinces and territories Capital Charlottetown Largest city Charlottetown Lieutenant Governor J. Léonce Bernard Premier Pat Binns (PC) Area 5,660 km² (13th)  - Land 5,660 km²  - Water 0 km² (0%) Population (2004)  - Population 137,900... Vancouver Island is a large island in British Columbia, Canada, off the Pacific coast. ...

China

• Zhanjiang, Guangdong and Haikou, Hainan

Zhanjiang (湛江) is a city in Guangdong province, in southeast China. ... Guangdong (Simplified Chinese: 广东; Traditional Chinese: 廣東; pinyin: ; Wade-Giles: Kuang-tung; Postal System Pinyin: Kwangtung or Canton Province, Jyutping: gwong2 dung1), is a province on the south coast of the Peoples Republic of China. ... Haikou (海口; pinyin: Hǎikǒu), situated at the north of Hainan island, is the capital of the economically booming Hainan Province of the Peoples Republic of China. ... Hainan (Chinese: 海南; pinyin: ) is a province of the Peoples Republic of China, located at the southern end of the country. ...

Denmark

• Rodby - Puttgarten - short cut connecting Denmark to Germany opened 1960.

• Copenhagen, Denmark and Hamburg, Germany, 6 trains/day

Rødby is a municipality in south Denmark, in the county of Storstrøm. ... 1960 was a leap year starting on Friday (link will take you to calendar). ... City nickname: none Location in Denmark Area  - Total  - Water 526 km² xxx km² xx% Population  - City (2004)  - Metropolitan  - Density 502,204 1,116,979 954/km2 [including water] xxx/km2 [land only] Time zone Eastern: UTC+1 Latitude Longitude 55°43 N 12°34 E Copenhagen (Danish: København) is... Position of Hamburg in Germany Hamburgs central broadway Jungfernstieg at the Alster lake, between 1900 and 1914 This article is about the city in Germany. ...

Georgia

• Russia to Georgia bypasses Abkhazia

Abkhazia (Abkhaz Аҧсны/Aphsny, Georgian აფხაზეთი/Apkhazeti, Russian Абха́зия/Abkhazia) is a region of 8,600 km² (3,300 sq. ...

Italy

• Mainland to Sicily

Sicily (Sicilia in Italian) is an autonomous region of Italy and the largest island in the Mediterranean Sea, with an area of 25,700 sq. ...

New Zealand

• North Island to South Island - 2 ferries - proposal to build new South Island terminal to reduce ferry distance and time.

The North Island is one of the two main islands of New Zealand, the other being the South Island. ... South Island The South Island forms one of the two major islands of New Zealand, the other being the North Island. ...

Norway

• Some fjords are bridged by train ferries, including the siding to the Hydro-Norsk deuterium factory, as seen in the movie starring Kirk Douglas called The Heroes of Telemark. See Today's Railways #113.

Kirk Douglas in Champion Kirk Douglas (born December 9, 1916) is an American actor. ... Heroes of Telemark is a 1965 war film based on the story of the Norwegian heavy water sabotage during World War II. Norwegian resistance fighters sabotage the Nazi German effort to produce heavy water for German atomic research during World War II. Snowy Norwegian locations serve as a backdrop for...

Sweden

• Malmö, Sweden and Berlin, Germany 1 train/day

Malmö (   listen?) is a town and municipality in the southernmost Swedish province of SkÃ¥ne. ...   Berlin? (pronounced: , German ) is the capital of Germany and its largest city, with 3,426,000 inhabitants (as of January 2005); down from 4. ...

Turkey

• Lake Van - will be replaced by railway along lake shore when traffic increases enough.
• Bosphorus - bids called in 2005 to replace with tunnel.
• Black Sea - Ilyichevsk, Ukraine to Derince, Turkey by passes a break of gauge

Lake Van Landsat photo Lake Van (in Turkish Van Gölü) is the largest lake in Turkey, located in the far east of the country. ... Fatih Sultan Mehmed Bridge over the Bosporus seen from over Rumelihisarı This article is about the strait; Bosphorus is also a Turkish Boğaziçi or İstanbul Boğazı) is a strait that separates the European part (Rumeli) of Turkey from its Asian part (Anadolu), connecting the Sea of Marmara (Marmara Denizi) with... 2005 is a common year starting on Saturday of the Gregorian calendar and is the current year. ... Map of the Black Sea. ...

Ukraine

• Black Sea - see above

Map of the Black Sea. ...

United Kingdom

• Dover to Dunquerque, France - replaced by the Channel Tunnel

Location within the British Isles. ...

United States

• New York Cross Harbor Railroad, transferring freight cars between Jersey City, New Jersey, and Brooklyn, New York, run as needed. This ferry is operated, as rail cars with flammable and hazardous materials are not permitted in the former Pennsylvania Railroad tunnels under Manhattan and the Hudson River.

• The Alaska Railroad is only connected to the rest of the North American rail system via train ferries. The Alaska Railroad runs its own ferries from Whittier, Alaska to Seattle, Washington, and the Canadian National Railway operates its AquaTrain between Whittier and Prince Rupert, British Columbia.

• Frankfurt, Lake Michigan - defunct

New York Cross Harbor Railroad (NYCH) operates the only rail-float barge operation in the New York Harbor. ... Jersey Citys skyline from Hoboken, New Jersey. ... For other meanings, see Brooklyn (disambiguation). ... 1911 map The Pennsylvania Railroad (AAR reporting mark PRR) was an American railroad existing 1846–1968, after which it merged into Penn Central Transportation. ... The Alaska Railroad (AAR designation ARR) is a Class 2 railroad that extends from Seward, in the south of the state of Alaska, in the United States, to Fairbanks, in the interior of that state. ... Whittier is a town located in the Valdez-Cordova Census Area of Alaska. ... Seattle skyline City nickname: The Emerald City Location of Seattle in King County and Washington State County King Mayor Greg Nickels (NP) Area   â€“Land   â€“Water 369. ... Missing image Canadian National Railways logo or herald (used pre-1960) Missing image Network Map of Canadian National Railway The Canadian National Railway (CN; AAR reporting marks CN, CNA, CNIS), known as Canadian National Railways (CNR) between 1918 and 1960, and Canadian National/Canadien National (CN) from 1960 to present... Prince Rupert is a city in the province of British Columbia, Canada. ... Frankfurt - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia /**/ @import /skins-1. ... Sunset on Lake Michigan A different sunset on the lake. ...

Portage railways

The opposite of a train ferry is a portage railway. A portage railway is a short and possibly isolated section of railway used to bypass a section of unnavigatable river. ...

• A train ferry overcomes a lack of a land link.
• A portage railway overcomes a lack of a navigatable stretch of a river.

For example, before the Panama canal, the Panama Railway provided a link between the Atlantic Ocean and the Pacific Ocean. NASA image of the Panama canal The Panama Canal is 82 kilometers (51 miles) long and cuts through the isthmus of Panama, connecting the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. ... The Panama Railway or Panama Railroad was the worlds first transcontinental railroad. ...

Hazards of train ferries

While no train ferries (as far as it is known) have met with disaster at sea, car ferries such as the Herald of Free Enterprise, which share some of the weaknesses of train ferries, have met with disaster. M/S Herald of Free Enterprise was a roll-on roll-off (RORO) car and passenger ferry that sank on March 6, 1987, killing 193 passengers, due to negligence by the crew and company operating the ship. ...

These weaknesses include:

• Trains are loaded at a rather high level, making the ship top heavy.
• The train deck is difficult to compartmentalise, so that sloshing flood water can destabilise the ship.
• The sea doors where the trains go in and out are a weakness, even if placed at the rear of the ship.
• The train carriages need to be strongly secured lest they break away and roll around.