Torne River Railway Bridge

About

The Torne River Railway Bridge is a dual gauge railway bridge on the Tornio–Haparanda railway between Haparanda, Sweden and Tornio, Finland; the bridge can be used by the 1524mm gauge trains of Finland, as well the 1435mm gauge trains used in Sweden. A temporary ice river track was built over the Torne River in 1917. The current bridge was opened in 1919 and was the first direct connection between the towns until the road bridge opened in 1939. It was jointly built by the governments of Sweden and Finland, and by the railway company. A small aerial lift was built in 1916 over the river to transport mail, because during parts of the year the ice was too strong for boats and too weak or too split up for walking. This was the main gateway between Western Europe and the Russian Empire, which Finland was a part of until 1917, during the First World War. The aerial lift was removed when the railway bridge was operating.

The bridge is painted white from the Finnish side to the international border, and is blue from there to the Swedish side. The dual gauge tracks continue over the bridge into railway marshalling yard in either country (a Swedish-gauge marshalling yard in Tornio, and a...

The bridge is 405 metres (1,329 ft) long, and was built as a swing bridge (although it was seldom used as such) which rotated in the horizontal plane around the central pillar. The bridge was converted to a fixed structure on October 22, 1985.