Good evening,

Maybe news for people unfamiliar with Northern Germany. There is a train link from the German mainland to the popular North Sea island of Sylt, offering long distance passenger service from Hamburg. Trains with diesel traction are passing the sea on a more than 10 km long causeway, which was constructed in 1927 ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hindenburgdamm ).The only possibility to reach the island by automobile from the Geman coast is to board a train near the Danish border, the so called Sylt Shuttle. The latter is operating dedicated trains with double deck units for automobiles and flat cars for lorries and buses plus special units for motorbikes. Before the era of privatisations, this used reportedly to be the only profitable line of the German Bundesbahn. Alternatively, there is a car ferrry running from Denmark.

Below websites are in German, but the pictures say more than a thousand words.

Official Sylt Shuttle website with photographs:
http://www.syltshuttle.d...ugpark/fahrzeugpark.html
http://www.syltshuttle.d...schichte/geschichte.html

Finally, a remarkable collection of historic post cards - some dramatically edited, showing consists pulled by steam and diesel engines:
http://www.maerklinist.d...gdamm/hindenburgdamm.htm

Enjoy.

Thank you for sharing this with us. I had no idea that there were islands off the coast of Germany. The island does not seem very big - so why do people need to take so many cars over there?

Here some pix from my re-enactment three years ago (The layout does not exist any more ).
Greetz