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The German and part of the Danish railway line

Ferry at Puttgarden. Trains and cars are loaded by the lower ramp, cars only by the upper ramp.

The Vogelfluglinie (German) or Fugleflugtslinien (Danish) is a transport corridor between Copenhagen, Denmark, and Hamburg, Germany.

As the Danish and German names (literally: bird flight line) imply, the corridor is also an important bird migration route between arctic Scandinavia and Central Europe.

[edit] Ferry link

The core of the connection is the 19-kilometre (12 mi) ferry link between Rødby (Denmark) and Puttgarden (Germany). The line is operated by the jointly Danish and German state-owned Scandlines. Ferries take 45 minutes and operate twice an hour, 24 hours a day. The ships act as car and train ferry simultaneously.

The projected Fehmarn Belt bridge will eventually replace the ferries. Danish-German negotiations on June 29, 2007 culminated in an agreement to complete the bridge by 2018, essentially on the basis of Danish funding.

[edit] Landside connections

The road connection consists of:

European route E47 on the Danish side.
Autobahn A1 (European routes E 47 and E22) on the German side, and the two-lane Bundesstraße 207/E 47 on the northernmost section. An additional 10 km (6.2 mi) of motorway will be completed by 2008, still leaving the last 25 km (16 mi) a two-lane road.

The rail connection consists of:

118 km (73 mi) of double track from Copenhagen to Vordingborg; maximum speed 140 to 180 km/h (87 to 112 mph); electrified for 64 km (40 mi) to Ringsted
65 km (40 mi) of single track from Vordingborg to Rødby; maximum speed 120 km/h (75 mph)
89 km (55 mi) of single track from Puttgarden to Lübeck
64 km (40 mi) of double track from Lübeck to Hamburg, electrified.

Passenger services between Copenhagen and Hamburg number three to five EuroCitys a day in each direction, operated with DBAG Class 605 trains of Deutsche Bahn and Danish IC3 trains. Since completion of the Great Belt Bridge freight trains are not directed via Rødby-Puttgarden any more, but via Funen and Jutland which is 160 km (99 mi) longer. Same applies to the CityNightLine train between Copenhagen and Munich/Dortmund/Basel/Amsterdam.

These current bridges and tunnels are part of the connection:

Masnedsund Bridge, Denmark (rail)
Storstrøm Bridge, Denmark (rail)
Frederick IX Bridge, Denmark (rail)
Farø Bridges, Denmark (motorway)
Guldborgsund Tunnel, Denmark (motorway extension opened in late 2007)
Fehmarn Sound bridge, Germany (two-lane road and rail)

[edit] History

Proposals for a more direct "bird flight line" date back from the 1920s. Construction was started on the Danish side in 1941 after the Nazi occupation force pushed the matter, but work was halted again in 1946. After World War II, Warnemünde was included in East Germany territory. Political divisions made traffic between Denmark and West Germany via Warnemünde inconvenient.

From 1951 to 1963 a ferry line from Gedser to Großenbrode operated as a temporary solution. In addition, traffic between Copenhagen and Hamburg would either be directed over the Great Belt ferry, Funen and Jutland or the Gedser-Warnemünde ferry. Construction of the "bird flight line" was restarted in 1949 and completed in 1963.

[edit] Beeline in pictures

Vogelfluglinie/Fugleflugtslinien
M/S Prinsesse Benedikte, one of the ferries	A Danish IC3 train in Hamburg Central Station	The ICE-TD/type 605 is now used on the Vogelfluglinie	Storstrøm Bridge
Farø Bridges	Fehmarnsundbrücke.JPG Fehmarn Sound Bridge