Four Decades of Hungary's Unique Railway Ferry

MAGYARUL

Sounds good, looks impressive, but doesn't work — the railway workers and the passengers may have thought as they waited for the Danube railway ferry at Gombos, Southern Hungary that had been just opened to the public four days earlier. According to contemporary reports, travelers could often read in the waiting rooms of the Keleti Railway Station at Budapest and in the pages of the Budapest Gazette that the railway crossing between Gombos and Erdőd would be out of service for an indefinite period of time, mainly because the Alföld-Fiume Railway Company did not have the money to build a bridge or to complete the railway line to Fiume.

The two railway ferries at the Gombos harbor bay

The Alföld-Fiume railway was originally built to transport Hungarian agricultural products from the Hungarian Great Plains to the country's largest seaport, Fiume/Rijeka, as quickly and efficiently as possible. Its starting point was Nagyvárad/Oradea, but contrary to popular belief and expectations, its terminus was not Fiume but Eszék/Osijek, even though the permits had been obtained by the private company. In the end, however, another railway company was able to build the line to the Adriatic Sea. Due to a lack of funds, construction was repeatedly delayed, and the entire Eszék-Nagyvárad line was not completed in one go, but in five separate sections between 1869 and 1871. The railway line crossed the Tisza river at Algyő via a bridge, but there was not enough money to build another bridge over the Danube, so two steam ferries were put into operation here. The official opening ceremony took place on December 20, 1870, but four days later, the crossing was shut down due to icing on the Danube.

Around 1870, railway ferries were already a well-established means of transport in Europe, mainly used in places where the construction of a railway bridge was difficult for financial and/or geographical reasons. They were used not only for river crossings but also for sea crossings, and in fact, the very first railway ferry was put into operation in the North Sea, connecting Edinburgh-Granton with the port of Burntisland on the north coast across the Firth of Forth in Scotland, and traffic continued on it for a relatively long time between 1850 and 1890. 

The ferries between Gombos/Bogojevo and Erdőd/Erdut were designed for smaller volumes of traffic than those operating between the major cities of eastern Scotland, so there was no need for huge ferries capable of carrying 20 cars and designed to withstand sea waves. The designers based their plans on a functioning river ferry in Germany. South of Duisburg on the Rhine, near Rheinhausen, a prototype of the Gombos crossing was already operating. The design of the bays built for the ferries, the method of loading the wagons and carriages, and the size of the ferries (6-9 wagons) were almost identical. The Rheinhausen ferry began operating in 1866, but only functioned for eight years after the first railway bridge was built not far to the north, which was blown up during World War II [1]. 

Old and new ferry crossing between Gombos and Erdőd in 1881. (mapire.eu)

From a transport geography perspective, there were not many good options for routing the railway line from Szabadka/Subotica to Eszék across the Danube, but the least favorable option was chosen. South of Paks, and even more so south of Szekszárd, the meandering character of the Danube changes slightly, with the stable, gravelly riverbed becoming meandering type, forming an extremely wide floodplain. In 1870, Gemenc, Mohácsi Island, Béda-Karapancsa and Kopácsi rét/Kopački Rit were also part of this extensive wetland area, which stretched eastward to the high banks of the Bácska loess plateau, reaching a width of 20-25 kilometers in places, where it would have been extremely costly to build railway embankments and bridges. Above the mouth of the Drava, this huge floodplain narrowed in only one place enough to allow a bridge to be built: at the eastern end of the Bansko brdo hills, between Kiskőszeg/Batina and Bezdán. Here, with a relatively small detour, it would have been possible to route the railway so that it touched the nearby county seat, Zombor/Sombor, and then turned south and continued towards Eszék with another bridge over the Drava. Presumably, the cost of building the two bridges was the main reason why a less geographically advantageous solution was chosen between Erdőd and Gombos, where two river crossings had to be built at a slightly lower cost, but one of them was only a branch of a Danube island.

The steam ferry seen from the Bogojevo side of the Danube (forrás)

There had been a crossing point on the Danube at Gombos before. Its significance lay in the fact that it was the first river crossing below the mouth of the Drava, between Bačka and Slavonia. Its location was not ideal either, although one of its stations was at the end of the valley directly below the castle in Erdőd, the Gombos ferry inn on the other side was 5.5 kilometers away from the nearest settlement, Bogojevo, which was mainly inhabited by Hungarians. It is interesting that the South Slavic-sounding settlement names usually meant nothing in Bačka, as floods forced residents of different nationalities to move repeatedly, so the neighboring Karavukova, for example, was an authentic Swabian village. In the case of Gombos, the usual Hungarianization of names resulted in a very special situation, as Bogojevo did not regain its original medieval Hungarian name (Boldogasszony-telke) in 1899 (the Serbian distortion of which was Bogojevo), but was named after the Gombos family, who owned the inn at the ferry, in two steps. First, the ferry inn became a railway station, and then the name of the railway station became the name of the settlement.

The end of the steep railway track at the foot of the loess hill in Erdőd

The floodplain wetlands on the left bank at Gombos and the steep loess wall at Erdőd on the Croatian side both made the railway builders' work difficult. This asymmetrical loess plateau, which is very steep in the north but flattens out towards the south, diverts the Danube eastwards at the mouth of the Drava, with its highest points dropping down to the Danube with almost vertical walls, averaging 80-90 meters above the Danube's zero level. It was not possible to build the railway line directly across this ridge, as it would have been extremely expensive and pointless to dig a gorge, for example, so the engineers decided to bypass the high loess walls at the eastern end of the ridge towards Dálya/Dalj and build the track on the flatter southern part.

The steam ferries, named Duna and Dráva at Erdőd, with ship mills in the back.

They took advantage of the fact that there was a large island in the Danube just east of Erdőd, which they simply called Ada, and which was flat enough to build the Croatian terminus of the railway. First, they built a wooden bridge on its branch, which was easily damaged by floods and ice, so they later replaced it with an earth embankment. However, even then, the railway track was still relatively steep, and on several occasions, the carriages running on the steam ferry (the ferry did not carry locomotives, which were attached to the train on the other side of the Danube) arriving from Erdőd at high speed and sliding into the Danube because they were unable to brake the train sufficiently. This problem was only solved in 1881 with the use of scotch blocks [2].

The monumental new bridge and the still operating railway ferry.

However, the Danube proved to be the most formidable opponent for the steam ferry in three respects:

1. Current. Since the railway track arrived perpendicular to the banks of the Danube, a solution had to be found to load the wagons onto the steam ferry regardless of the river's current. The current could easily turn the 62-meter-long iron hull and bend the pair of rails leading to it. For this reason, a protected bay was dredged on both banks, where the rails were led into the riverbed, and a sliding, wedge-shaped bridge was used to guide the carriages onto the ferry, sometimes wading into the water up to their axles. At Gombos, on the flatter shore, this bay was more than 300 meters long and wide enough to accommodate both ferries without hindering each other's operation. On their outer sides, iron cables stabilized the hull against the current to prevent them from deviating from their course, and the steam engine mounted on the ferry pulled itself across to the other side with the help of an additional cable tow rope. The question may arise as to whether these cables hindered traffic on the river, but they were so heavy that they normally sank below the water surface, deep enough not to obstruct the traffic of steamboats.
2. Icing. When the Danube freezes over, the ferries stop running. Even if they are made of iron. On 1870 Christmas Eve, four days after the ferry's ceremonial opening, traffic came to a halt due to the appearance of ice sheets, which were still a common feature of the Danube landscape at that time. There was not much that could be done if there was ice on the Danube from December to the end of February, as the ferry was unusable during this time, and the weather forecast was not yet advanced enough to tell passengers in advance when rail traffic would resume.
3. Water level. Since both stations of the crossing were built on floodplains, it was predictable that traffic would be suspended during floods. However, not only high water levels but also low water levels threatened rail traffic. As the railway line was built in just a few years, it was necessary to wait for the lowest possible water level during those few years so that the tracks could be laid as deep as possible in the bay. However, there was no guarantee that the low water levels that had prevailed during the few years of railway construction would not be exceeded in the future. On December 7, 1871, barely a year after the handover, the water level dropped so low that traffic had to be stopped, but in such cases, at least the time could be spent usefully, e.g., by extending the track toward the riverbed [3].

The destruction of the Gombos railway bridge in 1941. (Fortepan)

These circumstances made rail traffic extremely difficult and unpredictable, and made it impossible to plan the transport of goods and passengers, especially perishable goods. The Alföld–Fiume Railway Company therefore struggled with constant financial difficulties, and Hungarian State Railways (MÁV) eventually purchased the entire company in 1884 and continued to operate the steam ferry until 1911, when the long-awaited railway bridge was built a few dozen meters south of the steam ferry route. This bridge was blown up by Yugoslavia during the German attack in 1941, rebuilt in 1947, and opened to road traffic as well. In 1977, due to increased traffic, a new road bridge was built between Gombos and Erdőd. The long bay for steam ferries on the Gombos side is still visible between the two bridges today.

The bridges at Gombos in September 2011.

The steam ferries named Duna and Dráva operated until the very last moment, until the day the bridge was inaugurated, for a total of four decades. During this time, many different postcards were made of this unique technological feature. However, the fate of the ferries after their retirement is not entirely clear. During the construction of the bridge, several towns applied to take them over, including the aforementioned Kiskőszeg, but they would also have been taken to Kalocsa and Mohács [4]. According to the Hungarian Technical and Transportation Museum, one of the steam ferries was eventually taken to Budapest, and after being fitted with a superstructure, it became the two-story boathouse of the Honvéd Rowing Club on Margaret Island. In the 1980s, it sank in the bay of Népsziget, but in 2015 it was raised, repaired, and turned into two interactive visitor centers showcasing the 2017 World Aquatics Championships and Budapest's Olympic bid. Today, it is moored at Batthyány Square. [5] [6].

However, the Danube did not remain without a railway ferry. From 1953 until 2013, a ferry carried trains between Calafat in Romania and Vidin in Bulgaria until the new Danube bridge was built. But that is another story.

Translated with DeepL.com (free version)

Literature:

[1] https://www.kultushafen-bewahren.de/geschichte/rhein%C3%BCberquerungen/

[2] Békésmegyei Közlöny, 1881-05-26 / 63. szám

[3] Magyar Ujság, 1872-01-10 / 6. szám

[4] Pécsi Napló, 1911-05-17 / 112. szám

[5] https://www.facebook.com/KozlekedesiMuzeum/posts/pfbid0382p1E8JpWLqMhSn2novauyqqEsRzjdrihNv8iswpYRNy8hVK41ihSf5EmF73GqWgl

[6] https://turizmusonline.hu/cikkek/belfold/delvideki_gozkompbol_lett_latogatokozpont_budapesten.html

https://www.hajoregiszter.hu/hajoadatlap/duna/duna/5134/3498

https://timelord.blog.hu/2013/07/10/gozkomp_a_dunan

Doomsayer on the Hunger Stone

 

There is no more perfect illustration of the spectacle than this headless soccer fan at the foot of Budapest's Szabadság Bridge. This sculpture is not mourning the rubbishy embankment, although it could, it is not exactly the elements of the decaying embankment that are being discussed, it has to be seen a little further away, but not much.

IN HUNGARIAN

The location may be familiar to readers of this blog, the famous hunger stone of Budapest located in the Danube at the foot of Gellért Hill, standing like a familiar apple tree at the end of the garden. Between 5 and 6 p.m. on the first day of July 2025, this rock seems, from a climatological point of view, much like the mentioned apple tree in the garden in blossom on a beautiful New Year's Eve, with swallows circling above.

In fact, this long introduction is unnecessary. Climate hasn't been given much space on the Danube Islands blog so far, and probably won't be again. Yes, behind the mourning blue-white soccer fan you can see the Hunger Stone. Yes, on the first day of July. Not for the first time this year, but for the second. On 4 March, it seemed like alarmism to write that the Hunger Stone would emerge, after all, the hydrographic forecasts could be wrong, only to find that less than a week later, on 11 March, you could take a selfie of it with dry feet. As Hungarian news portals have correctly reported, March has never seen anything like it since the start of the regular water level measurements on the Danube. This was an extraordinary situation from a hydrological point of view, as March is usually and historically a flood month on the Danube, not a low-water month. Typically, it used to be an icy flood season. Wesselényi, high water marks and all the rest.

Here we are again. In July. Never before this month has the Hunger Stone emerged from the Danube, since water level measurements have been taken place on the Danube. Not at the end of July, near the end of the hydrological year, but on the first day. Two days from International Danube Day. At the time when the second Danubian flood season stemming from rainfall usually ends. 1965, The Great Danube Flood, and so on. This is a hydrologically exceptional situation. Second time this year. So that only half the year has passed. A bird of distress is perched on the Hunger Stone. Wait, there are already two of them.

Of course, you could say that we are half a metre away from the lowest water level ever recorded in history, we survived the autumn of 2018, which was already seven years ago. Except that the low water “came in time” when it was expected, after the Danube catchment area had drained, just before the autumn rains. Of course, we also survived the drought of 2022, when we had to write that on 10 August the Hunger Stone had never appeared so early in Budapest. On 10 August. Which is forty days from now. During the “historic” drought, which was just three years ago.

The meteorologists forecast rain in a few days, four days and the Hunger Stone will disappear again, and the birds of distress will fly away. We may have another summer, autumn and winter like in our “childhood”, soft rain, sunbathing without skin cancer, then a good sledging in the fluffy snow, but this doubly extraordinary year will not turn into normal year. Soon, the three remaining months of April, May and June will fall. (The latter has just barely escaped with this half day.) We'll document that properly. And then there will be nothing else to do.

Translated with DeepL.com (free version)

Népsziget Noir

MAGYARUL

There was a period in the history of Budapest's Népsziget when industrial development overwhelmed it so much that it became the antithesis of the Danubian islands, and the irreversibly rusting socialist progress painted by Tamás Urbán and laconically described by Tamás Kátai left an indelible mark on the ruined, urbanised, grey landscape that had become a sociological segregate, where the eliminated green colour, together with the city dwellers longing for the Danube, is only cautiously venturing back from a few peripheral rowing facility relic areas to marvel once again at the sunlight dancing on the water, the pebbles, the windblown trees, and the scent of the cleansing Danube.

Rolling mills shape their bodies

From iron and steel a nation unfolds

From the past tomorrow takes hold

The hammer teaches you order and tolls

Lyrics and music: Tamás Kátai / Thy Catafalque : Vasgyár

Photo: Tamás Urbán / FORTEPAN

Bustletown Regensburg

MAGYARUL

Four hundred years ago, Hans Georg Bahre, a renown engraver from Regensburg created the monumental Danubian landscape, ‘Abriß (Anschicht) der Stadt Regensburg östlich und westlich der Steinernen Brücke’, which shows with such detail, accuracy and authenticity what life was like in one of the most important political and economic cities on the Danube in the 17th century. It has been used as an illustration in many works on the history of Regensburg ever since. It is also an important source of hydrology, as the Danube provides the lower frame throughout the picture and even a long-vanished Danube islands appear.

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Hans Georg Bahre (1586-1646) unknowingly combined the Bustletown books of Rotraut Suzanne Berner and Richard Scarry' Busytown. Just like in these books, we move from the suburbs towards the city centre and we list the inhabitants of the city by their crafts. It doesn't really matter who lived first, who knew whose work, but like the authors of children's books, Bahre has done a thorough job, so thorough that if we wanted to illuminate the background to his entire oeuvre, it would not be a blog post but a p.H.d of local history written with scholarly rigour. In its heyday, Regensburg was one of the largest, most populous and most important cities in Central Europe, the centre of the Holy Roman Empire, an important Danube crossing point where no ferrymen had to be bothered with wagons and carts on their ferries, but a massive stone bridge arched over the river, concentrating a considerable amount of trade traffic between the north and south in the free imperial city bordering the Danube for two kilometers.

The purpose of the picture was not to entertain children, but to represent the wealth, grandeur and importance of Regensburg, and for practical reasons it was appropriate to use the Danube as the main viewpoint, the main commercial artery of the city, where most of the trade took place. Like in Richard Scarry's Busytown, this image is easy to navigate, for two reasons; the notable buildings, such as churches, towers and farm buildings, were inscribed, and the second reason is prosaic, as most of the notable buildings are still to be found in Regensburg today. It is also an important historical source for buildings that have since disappeared, such as the two demolished towers of the Stone Bridge.

The term monumental is not an exaggeration, the parameters of the drawing are impressive, with a length of 8 meters and a width of 40 centimeters, a format similar to ancient papyrus scrolls. It is divided into two four-meter sections, the centre being the famous Stone Bridge, where the image breaks slightly. The 8-meter-long image on Wikipedia has been broken down into 18 separate images, which makes it less enjoyable, but certainly more manageable for those who cannot go to the Bavarian State Library in Munich to see it in person. In this publication, picture 18 is not included, as Prüfening and the Naab estuary, several kilometers from Regensburg, are already included in a somewhat exaggerated way, as the Mariaorter Wöhrd is missing, for example, and the style is somewhat different from the rest of the image.

A particular feature of Regensburg's Danube side is the conflict between the city's defence and economic interests. Already the Roman fortress of Castra Regina, built in 175 AD, had one side of the Danube, the northern (shorter) wall of the rectangular legionary camp opposite the estuary of the Regen river was approximately 450 meters long, joined on two sides by civilian suburbs. On this Danube wall, facing north, stood a huge gate, the Porta Praetoria, whose ruins, preserved at a height of one storey, are among the most important Roman landmarks in Regensburg. In addition to the gate towers and the corner towers, several smaller towers punctuated the walls of the legionary camp. After the end of Roman rule, although there was a lack of continuity in the population, the fortress was settled by Bavarian tribes within its remaining walls as early as the 6th century and soon became an important centre of power once again. In 920, the first duke of Bavaria, Arnulf, extended the city walls, enclosing the western outskirts as far as the present-day Eiserner Steg footbridge. Masons extended the Danube wall to 700 meters. Another four centuries later, another extension of the fortifications became necessary, as one of Europe's most populous cities was now home to around 40,000 people. New suburbs were built to the east and west of the Arnulfian walls, and in 1320 they were added to the old city core. This meant that Regensburg's 15-towered walls followed the Danube for two kilometers, but the distance between the walls and the river was no more than a few tens of meters, where defence and economic interests clashed, since all the goods traffic on the Danube had to be carried out at the base of the city walls and entered through a relatively large number of gates and passages. In fact, there is a tower (Kräncherturm) on the city wall which was used for the economy and topped by a crane structure.

In Bahre's view of Regensburg, in front of the city walls of Regensburg, we see quays built all along the city walls, with piles and beams to make them suitable for economic activity. In this narrow area, we can observe six distinct wharves for major commodities, which have survived to the present day in the form of districts or street names, despite the fact that, with few exceptions, Regensburg's city walls were demolished in 1856. Their common characteristic is that they belonged to the part of the city west of the Stone Bridge. Of all the products, salt had the most significant impact on the townscape, the old, not much smaller building is located on the other side of the new salt warehouse, the Salzstadel next to the Stone Bridge. To the west the meat market quay comes next, which was accessed via the Fleischtor, followed by the fishermen's huts, and next to it is the Weinlände quay, which was accessed via the Weintor to the wine market within the wall (Am Weinmarkt), as it is still called today. To the west was the wharf of the ironmongers and timber merchants (Holzlände), iron goods were transported by ship from the mines and smelters around Amberg, while timber was relatively plentiful in the area around the city, but the reason for the wharf was mainly that it was easier to float logs on the Danube to Regensburg. We can see industry dangling like shells on pebbles on the eastern piers of the Stone Bridge, but economic activity can also be observed to the east, with a gunpowder mill harnessing the Danube's hydroelectric power in the foreground of the surviving Eastern Gate at the base of the city wall.

Before we move on to the Danube itself, it is worth observing the figures who populate the picture, both men and women, and all social classes. As with modern wimmelbooks, you can also discover animals, both wild and domestic. The author, Hans Georg Bahre, even depicted himself among his peers in Figure 17, initialled H.G.B. There are fishermen walking their dogs, anglers sitting on the shore, merchants haggling on the quayside, stevedores huddled under their full puttons, horsemen towing boats against the tide, or women washing clothes by the brick manufactury, with ducks and other fowl wandering about. The vegetation is also remarkable, although the town itself is mostly treeless, with some waterfront stumps harvested by basket weavers in the outskirts, but it is interesting that they have allowed larger trees to grow on the lower parts of the piers of the Stone Bridge.

As the Stone Bridge has given the city its economic importance, it is no coincidence that the pride of Regensburg is prominently featured on Bahre's picture. As the image of the bridge has changed over the centuries, it has become much simpler, even puritanical, and has lost its baroque bustle. In 1809, the northern Black Tower in Stadtamhof was demolished due to war damage, while the central tower marking the border between the two towns was destroyed by an icy flood in the 1780s. In 1630, both were still standing in all their glory. The bridge had two distinct faces, mainly due to the devastating icy floods. On the west side of the bridge's piers, huge blocks of stone served as icebreakers, breaking up the ice blocks that attacked the bridge. This was extremely important for the protection of the bridge, because the architectural possibilities of the 1130s meant that the bridge's arches had relatively limited permeability, even in summer, causing the Danube to swell, and the water level was harnessed by the water wheels of the wooden huts on the south side, which would be as futile to search for today as trees would be left to grow on bridge piers. From the bridge, as today, a side bridge led to the island called Oberer Wöhrd (Upper Island).

If there was an upper island, there had to be a lower one, and this was accessed by a wooden bridge (Die Hülzern Prucken) built east of the Stone Bridge. The lifespan of the Wooden Bridge was greatly increased by the Stone Bridge's icebreakers, the broken ice slabs probably caused less damage and the pillars did not have to be rebuilt after every icy flood. Regarding the Regensburg material names, a new bridge was built in 1863 to replace the wooden one destroyed in February 1784, and was simply called the Eiserne Brücke (Iron Bridge). In 1630, between the two bridges, we see a water control structure in the Danube, about 300 meters long, built of wooden planks and littered with stones to make it easier for sailors to moor in the blocked area.

The most important detail in Bahre's picture for this blog is the first two pictures. In addition to the two large Wöhrd that still exist today, there is also a now-vanished island, the Bruder Wöhrd on tha right riverbank, in the eastern suburbs of Regensburg. The first two pictures show two separate islands, only one of which has a name. The dried up and waterlogged riverbeds, the bridge spanning over them, are documented in incredible detail with ducks, bushes and bank protection works. The location of this island can no longer be reconstructed, nor can the church of St Nicholas, for whose monks the island is presumably named.

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Situation of each section on a XVII. century map of Regensburg.

So this is what a short stretch of the Danube must have looked like four centuries ago, this is how people lived on its urban banks, and looking at the pictures you think, if only there was a similar one of every town on the Danube!

Translated with DeepL.com (free version)

The images with higher resolution can be found on Wikipedia: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Abri%C3%9F_der_Stadt_Regensburg_%281630%29?uselang=de

Riverside Maria and the Fall of Vindobona

MAGYARUL

There are "speaking" geographical names along the Danube, sometimes in the most unexpected places, often far from the river, such as one of Vienna's oldest churches. The German name of the Gothic church of Maria am Gestade clearly indicates that it stood on the riverbank when it was built, but today it is several streets and 320 metres away from the Donaukanal. The evocative name of the former church of the Danubian boatmen takes us back to the ancient history of Vienna's urban waterways and explains the peculiar shape of Vindobona's late Roman legionary camp.

The idealized image of the castra Vindobona before the III. century (source)

42 steps. That's how many steps you have to climb to get from Salzgries Street to the Roman Catholic Church of St Mary of the Riverside, on Passauer Platz, named after the former owner of Bishopric of Passau. But there are just as many steps for those arriving from the Tiefer Graben (Deep Trench - another "speaking" geographical name!), but probably even more for the medieval boatmen who climbed up from the Danube harbour below the bank to the church on the high bank, since the landfills that has since been done has reduced the difference in level considerably over the centuries. This high bank, marked by steps, can be followed eastwards to Schwedenplatz, and the site of Vienna's oldest church, the Ruprechtskirche, legend has it that it was founded in 740. The riverside Church of St. Mary and the medieval city wall immediately adjacent to it have dominated the Danube landscape of Vienna for centuries, initially the wooden chapel, then the stone church rebuilt in Gothic style at the turn of the 14th and 15th centuries, and its 56-meter-high tower, which was already raised by another 15-meter of the higher ground. 

42 steps of the Marienstiege towards the Passauer Platz.

The right bank of the Danube in Vienna can generally be compared to a flatter Greek theatre, where the surface slopes gradually and arena-like towards the Danube. At the end of the Last Glacial Maximum, this slope was even less uniform, with flatter surfaces alternating with steeper slopes, as if they were terraces. This stepped, terraced pattern was formed by the changing water flow of the Danube during the Ice Age, mainly for climatic and tectonic reasons, and the gravel material of the higher terraces was also covered by loess layers during the late Ice Age. However, since their formation, these terrace generations have been gradually exposed to the very strong lateral erosion of the Danube, caused by the local braided, anastomosing bedforms of the Danube. Vienna's urban core was also created on one such flood-free Danube terrace, the youngest, namely on the so-called Prater Terrace. The Prater terrace was formed during the Würm glaciation, and its gravel was deposited in Vienna at an altitude of 145-153 metres above sea level.

Danubian Terraces of Vienna. The Prater Terrace is nr. 6 with lilac color. (source)

The Roman military engineers had a fairly good sense for choosing camp sites, typically settling along river crossings, on flood-free ground, at road crossings, in well-protected areas and near fresh water sources. In Vienna, too, they built as close to the river as possible, where, after the conquest of the province of Pannonia, the Roman Empire built an earth-wood military camp for its auxiliaries on the flood-free Prater Terrace. In the case of Vindobona, crossing the Danube was somewhat problematic, as the floodplain reached a width of 6-10 kilometers and dotted with islands and gravel bars, and often had no specific main branch. The Romans chose the Danube estuary of the Ottakringer stream, nowadays known mainly for the yellow-labeled beer, which cut deep into the loess surface, as the military base, following the erosion valley of the Tiefer Graben, providing a natural moat for the military camp of Vindobona. There was also a good reason why the fortress was not built on the banks of the Wienfluss: the marly rock and soil conditions of the Wiener Wald mean that rainfall can only drain away to a limited extent, so at major rainfalls discharge often increased to devastating floods towards the Danube, and the cone of alluvium deposited in the riverbed not only impeded navigation but also had a profound effect on the development of the bends in the Danube branches on the right bank.

Cross section of the Danubian Terraces. Lilac: landfill, gray: loess, green: terrace gravel (source)

At the turn of the 1st and 2nd centuries the standard and regular Roman legionary camp was built, with a standard layout, familiar from many places along the Danube, but it is important to note that the orientation of the camps was not always aligned with the cardinal points, at Vindobona there is a 45 degree angle of deviation, i.e. the sides of the camp do not give the cardinal points, but the corners. Within the walls, the command buildings, barracks, baths and stores were arranged in a predetermined order in a rectangular area of about 450*500 metres (18.5 hectares) with three gates. The castrum's 3 metre wide stone walls were divided by towers, which were often rebuilt in differing shape from the ruins after the major destruction. A regular network of streets was laid out in the inner area of the legion camp, and this network of streets, together with the city walls and moats, still defines the street network and layout of the city of Vienna today. However, the archaeological excavations have not been able to reconstruct this regular layout in the Austrian capital, no finds have been recovered from the northern part of the castrum and no building foundations have been identified. The excavated Roman city wall in this section followed a natural break between the Maria am Gestade and the Ruprechtskirche. Since it is unlikely that the Romans in Vindobona deliberately deviated from the usual patterns, it can be assumed that the fortress wall may have suffered some irreparable damage that prevented it from being restored to its usual form. No barbarian opponent of the time was capable of such a feat, only the Danube. 

The line of effect of the Salzgries-arm within the legionary camp. (source)

There are two plausible scenarios for the destruction; a gradual erosion, which has been taking its toll over decades, gradually eroding the high bank and the fortress wall, and a single, extraordinary event. The latter is more likely. Sometime during the 3rd century AD, an extremely high flood may have flowed down the then westernmost branch of the Danube in Vienna, which science has named the Gonzagasse-Danube from the street that runs along its present-day course. This was the branch of the Danube on the banks of which Vindobona was originally built. The Roman legionary camp, however, was situated on the outer curve of the bend, where the proximity of the current line meant that bank erosion could occur even at mid-water. This was probably not simple riverbank erosion, but the displacement of a branch of the Danube, which also had a tectonic prediction in the fault lines of the Pannonian clay layers forming the terrace material, i.e. slides could have exacerbated the situation. 

The Danube has carried away more than 100 metres of the river terrace, shortening the lower reaches of the Ottakringer stream, removing up to several million cubic meters of sediment material from the Prater terrace, and at the same time from the western suburbs of Vindobona and the northern corner of the castrum of Vindobona. It is even possible that the suburban amphitheatre stood on the same site and also collapsed into the Danube. Similar changes in the riverbed were not at all uncommon in the pre-regulation period in the vicinity of Vienna, with sediment or other riverbed material often blocking off branches and causing islands, gravel bars and even settlements and bridges to be demolished in search of new routes. Severin Hohensinner's images illustrate this process over the last two millennia. 

42 steps to Maria am Gestade church

It is thought that material from the collapsed wall of the camp was used in Roman times to stabilise the collapsed bank and rebuild the northern wall of the camp along the newly formed river branch, which science calls the Salzgries branch from another street. This street name is also an evocative geographical name, a reminder of the salt trading ships that harboured here. Vindobona was by then past its heyday, having experienced a decline in socio-economic terms broadly similar to that of Aquincum. At one point in its history, a dwindling and impoverished population moved within the fortress walls until, sometime in the early 5th century, Roman administration ceased and the camp and its suburbs fell into ruin. If there was a continuity in the population, archaeology has found no evidence of it, the latest coin dates from 408 and after the middle of the century a layer of no archaeological remains was formed over the Roman ruins. 

Steps to the Ruprechtskirche, Vienna's oldest church

But the Salzgries branch of the Danube remained where it was, in the northern foothills of the ruined Roman fortress walls, and a thousand years later the church of Maria am Gestade was named after it. The name was a timely one, for the river, which was once quite navigable in size, gradually became silted up and narrowed during the 12th century, and the Danube bed moved away from the high bank to the north-east to form the so-called Porzellangassen branch, but still remained within the present-day Danube Canal to the west. 

Riverbed changes during the antiquity and in the Medieval Era in Vienna's 1st district.
1. Gonzagagasse-branch 2. Salzgries-branch 3. Porzellangassen-branch 4. Ottakringer stream
10. Wienfluss 11. Trench system of Vindobona (source: Wasser | Stadt | Wien)

The shifting of the Danube riverbed in the 3rd century left such an indelible mark on Vienna's urban structure that it affected not only the differences in geomorphology but also the city's road network. Neither the thousands of years of human landforming nor the great Viennese river regulation of 1875 were able to erase the work of the Danube that had been preserved precisely because of the building development. And if we listen carefully to the geographical names that speak, they tell us about the historical and geographical changes that have taken place over the millennia. 

Literature :

• https://tobias-lib.ub.uni-tuebingen.de/xmlui/bitstream/handle/10900/61026/CD71_Gietl_et_al_CAA_2003.pdf?sequence=2&isAllowed=y
• https://www.wgm.wien.at/hydrogeologische-forschung/news/flut-von-vindobona
• https://www.geschichtewiki.wien.gv.at/Salzgries
• https://www.wien.gv.at/kulturportal/public/grafik.aspx?bookmark=0nZLRk2zFUYHn7dFw-aI3RRwpAtZGVBFvuBteonQ1N1C4dSRsFu7fFg-b-b
• https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vindobona
• https://www.wgm.wien.at/fileadmin/docs/hydrogeo-forschung/2022/Vortr%C3%A4ge/Pr%C3%A4sentation_WGM2022.pdf

Translated with DeepL.com (free version)

Blasting the Schwalleck

MAGYARUL

Despite the fact that sirens throughout the city had given half an hour's notice of the historic event, the explosion of the Schwalleck rock in Grein, which overlooks the Danube, caused serious collateral damage. Collapsed walls of apartment blocks, roads buried by debris and damaged railway embankments signalled the beginning of the process of making the "Austrian Iron Gates", the infamous Strudel Strait, navigable. 

The Schwalleck peninsula. A detail from the map of Strudengau. (Leopold Franz von Rosenfelt, 1721.)

The term "Austrian Iron Gates" is no coincidence, the Strudengau in Austria was as much a dreaded passage for sailors as the Iron Gate, Islás or Tachtalia on the Lower Danube. On this 25-kilometer stretch, the Danube cuts its way through the 300-million-year-old granite cliffs of the Bohemian Massif between Ardagger/Dornach and Ybbs/Persenbeug, where the rocky reefs and the whirpools they create have caused the destruction of many ships, for example between Wörth and Werfenstein. Just as the (second) regulation of the Iron Gates began in 1890 with the blowing up of a symbolic rock, the Grében, so the regulation of the Strudengau began with explosions, the first being the castle of Donaudorf on the right bank near Ybbs on 20 December 1955, and the second being the blowing up of the left bank of the Schwalleck promontory near the town of Grein in Upper Austria.

Outlook from the Schwalleck towards the town and castle of Grein.

Until Friday, 13 June 1958, at 12.30 pm, the Schwalleck Cliff reached far into the Danube, and in a very bad place, for navigation, as the drift line of the river led ships travelling downstream straight into it, while above it, at the mouth of the Greinerbach, a shoal was formed where flating ice were regularly stuck, and the cross-section of the river at the cliffs was also narrowing, causing the river to speed up, which made life difficult for sailors heading in the opposite direction, towards Linz. Geographically, the 250-260 m high Schwalleck was a counterpart to the cliff on which Grein Castle was built at the end of the 15th century, and these two heights defined the local skyline, the town of Grein being either depicted from here or depicted as being on the picture. It was about 40 to 50 meters above the Danube's zero level.

The doomed Schwalleck, and the evacuated buildings at its foot. (source)

It was originally topped by a cross called Halterkreuz, the origin of which is told in a local legend: a shepherd from Grein used to graze his cattle near the cliff during high water. While grazing, he was trying to fetch scrap wood out of the flood, which he wanted to store for firewood during the winter. When he tried to drag a large branch ashore, he slipped and fell into the water. Unable to swim, he desperately squeezed the drifting branch and, fearing for his life, vowed that if he managed to escape, he would place a cross on the shore to the glory of God. The river eventually swept the branch ashore, where he managed to cling to a tree hanging in the water and was lucky to escape. He kept his vow and the so-called Shepherd's Cross stood at Schwalleck Cliff until the explosion. [1] There was another cross here, the Schwalleck Kreuz, which was also destroyed by the blast, but was later reerected on the side of the cliff face opposite the Halterkreuz [2]. 

The moment of the explosion (source)

Austria's first hydroelectric power plant on the Danube was built jointly with Germany between 1952 and 1956, on the border between the two countries, just next to the unique Jochenstein cliff, which fortunately was not blown up along with the statue of St John Nepomuk on it. Austria then began to barrage the Danube, and construct the next power station which was located at the lower end of the Strudengau, between Ybbs and Persenbeug, precisely because of the navigability of the Strudengau. 

On 11 June 1958, the mayor of Grein sent out a leaflet informing the population of the impending explosion. The precaution was certainly justified, as there were already inhabited houses less than 100 metres from the Schwalleck cliff, which the town did not wish to demolish. Some nearby structures had to be sacrificed, such as those built at the base of the cliff. Doors and windows had to be left open, parked cars were removed, and valuables and furniture were moved to the far corners of the rooms for safekeeping. However, due to the proximity of the site, the blast caused significant damage to the city [3]. 

Landscape after the blast (source)

On that day, 5,800 kilograms of explosives blew up the cliff, from which more than three hundred thousand cubic meters of stone were then extracted in several stages, ensuring the unobstructed flow of ice and the necessary width of the shipping lane. Interestingly, a small cliff was left as a memorial between the Danube and the new main road, and the Shepherd's Cross was put back on it when the works were completed. Since then, the vegetation has conquered the cliff, the cars the new route and the boats the less dangerous bend in the river. The Ybbs-Persenbeug hydroelectric power station has raised the water level by 11 metres at the power station, about 5 metres at Wört and slightly less at Grein, and has removed the rapids, reefs and cliffs of the Strudengau. There is now no threat to navigation on the uniform river.  

The boulder of Halterkreuz left as a memento (forrás)

Everyone seems to have well served. If you're passing by, you don't miss anything, as if everything was already like this. What we don't know doesn't hurt. To those whose hearts we might have hurt by this old story, we apologise. 

But we will continue.  

Translated with DeepL.com (free version)

Danke an die Autoren des Österreichischen Donaubuchs für die Idee!

[1] https://www.grein.at/Tourismus/Sehenswuerdigkeiten/Halterkreuz

[2] https://www.grein.at/Tourismus/Sehenswuerdigkeiten/Schwalleck_Kreuz

[3] https://www.im-fundus.at/das-greiner-schwalleck-gefuerchtetes-schifffahrtshindernis/