History of rail transport in Denmark

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This article is part of the history of rail transport by country series

The history of rail transport in Denmark is commonly considered to have begun in 1847 with the opening of the railway line between Copenhagen and Roskilde; the Kiel-Altona line in Holstein had been completed three years earlier, but the region was since lost to the German Confederation in the Second War of Schleswig.

The Danish national railway company, DSB, was established in 1885. Until recently, DSB took care of most aspects of rail operation, but the liberalisation efforts during the 1990s have resulted in several tasks being branched off into other companies.

Contents 1 Early steps 2 Expansion 3 References 4 External links

[edit] Early steps

In the 1830s, plans were being made by England and North Germany to construct a railway line between the cities of Hamburg and Lübeck in order to ease transport between the North Sea and the Baltic Sea. This was frowned upon by the Copenhagen government, seeking to retain the waterway traffic through Oresund, but in an attempt to preempt these efforts, the Danish government set up the first Danish railway commission in 1835 so as to establish the layout of a railway line through the Duchy of Holstein. Consequently, the railway between Altona and Kiel was opened by King Christian VIII on September 18, 1844. However, the Duchy of Holstein was only in personal union with Denmark, with the King of Denmark being Duke of Holstein, and as a result of the Second War of Schleswig, Holstein was ceded to the German Confederation in 1864. The railway line was not the first in what constituted Denmark at the time (as Holstein was part of the German Confederation), but it was nonetheless the first to be built under the Danish monarchy.

In 1840, technician Søren Hjorth and accountant Johan Christian Gustav Schram published the paper Jærnbane mellem Kjøbenhavn og Roeskilde, in which they argued that a railway between Copenhagen and Roskilde would be profitable. However, there was no further interest in this project until 1841, when cooperation with Industriforeningen had been established; after substantial financial recalculations, in 1843, they applied for a concession to construct a railway from Copenhagen via Roskilde to a coastal town on West Zealand. This was granted about a year later, albeit not with the same level of governmental economic support as the Kiel-Altona line.

On July 2, 1844, Det sjællandske Jernbaneselskab (The Railway Company of Zealand) was established with Hjorth and Schram among the board of directors. Amidst considerable resistance from landowners, trouble with unstable labour and excessive expenditures, the economic resources necessary to complete the line were provided, and the Copenhagen-Roskilde line was opened, as the first in Denmark, on June 26, 1847. Construction of the line was led by English engineer William Radford, and the initial batch of locomotives, the first of which was named Odin, was built by Sharp Brothers & Co. in Manchester, England.

[edit] Expansion

Following the ratification of the Danish Constitution in 1849, there was a political desire to improve trade routes to England and provide better connections between Copenhagen and the rest of the country, the primary means of which being an extension of the Copenhagen-Roskilde line to Korsør on the west coast of Zealand. During the 1850s, the sufficient funding needed to extend line to Korsør was secured, and the new segment was opened on April 26, 1856.

Before the First War of Schleswig, plans had been made in Schleswig to construct a railway from Flensburg via Husum to Tönning in order to limit the German influence on trade. However, these plans were for some time hampered by the war and the new political system, but in 1852, the construction company Peto, Brassey & Betts (represented in Scandinavia by Samuel Morton Peto) was granted concession to build the line, which was opened on October 6, 1854. The railway was very successful in carrying English transit goods until 1857, when the Oresund Toll was abolished.

[edit] References

• Koed, Jan (1997). Danmarks Jernbaner i 150 år. Forlaget Kunst og Kultur. ISBN 87-7600-199-7.

[edit] External links

• Danish railway history from Banedanmark (in Danish)
• DSB: History and nostalgia (in Danish)