Helsingør–Helsingborg ferry route

Due to the short distance, which is less than 3 nautical miles, is it one of the world's busiest international car ferry routes, with around 70 daily departures from each harbour.

The oldest-known written mention of the route dates to the German traveller Adam of Bremen in the 11th century, but it has likely been in use much longer.

They use dual command bridges and lack natural prows and sterns (nor starboard and port side) and hence never need to turn.

This is not intended for travelers, but more for local residents and others who makes one or more immediate return journeys (passengers do not need to leave the ships in port).

Locally this has spawned a new word (a verb)—to "tura" (Swedish) or to "ture" (Danish), which simply means "making at least one return trip for fun".

[8] Helsingborg is located on the Swedish West Coast Main Line ("Västkustbanan"), but the first 25 km north of "The Junction" station (until Maria), only consist of a single track railway, which have some very sharp bends and a steep elevation in the northern part of the city.

In 2017 Scandlines began a project which is aiming for electrical power through huge batteries, in order not to emit greenhouse gases and other pollutants.

[11] There is proof of traveling across the northern part of Øresund from earliest possible historical times, or since the Christianisation of the Vikings (in Denmark from around 985, according to the larger Jellinge Stone).

The oldest-known historical text about travels across Øresund derives from the German history writer Adam of Bremen, who around 1070 wrote "From Zealand to Scania are many well used crossings, of which the shortest leads to Helsingborg.

After the Swedish conquest of Scania, the ships which were bound to pay the charges needed to anchor just south of Kronborg Castle, as Sweden had never been allowed to take any dues.

The sheltered location just south of Kronborg, where ships anchored in order to pay the Sound Dues, are the ferry berth of Helsingør today.

King Frederick I decided in 1524 that Elsinore would exempt from paying royal taxes, on the condition that "his people" should be shipped across the route for free.

However, in practice the monopoly was abandoned already by 1874, as Denmark's largest shipping line at the time had begun to operate on the route.

[17] Fourteen years later, in 1888, private ownership was abandoned, as "De Danske Statsbaner" the Danish national railways or DSB took over the service.

[19] The route was from its beginning a totally Danish matter (though some cars of the trains could belong to Norwegian NSB), first by 1931 did the Swedish counterpart to DSB, Statens Järnvägar or SJ involved.

DSB had the same year as LB started to compete put the new M/F Helsingør on the route and later followed her sistership M/F Hälsingborg.

The earliest LB ferries had the cafeterias well above the car deck which was the difference between watching the sea or perhaps feeling a bit claustrophobic.

Just three years after LB established their line, in 1958, did Sundbusserne, small ships or "Sound Buses" (which could not carry cars, lorries or trains), began to operate on the route.

On top of that an older ship called Marina sailed every hour from Helsingborg to Snekkersten just a few kilometers south of Helsingør's port.

[45][46] The 1973 energy crisis and higher oil prices affected the Øresund crossing routes, from huge profits the privately owned shipping lines got financial difficulties.

In October 1980 LB's headquarters in Stockholm decided to move the SL ferries from Landskrona to Malmö, but they still sailed to Copenhagen Tuborg Danish side.

This made the crossing time 20–25 minutes longer (much due to the flat island Saltholm and its surrounding shallow waters), and the already existing route between Limhamn (a borough in southern Malmö with a port of its own) and Dragør (just south of Kastrup Airport) had a crossing time of just 50 minutes.

The huge goods train ferries were sister ships, the Danish M/F Trekroner, and the Swedish M/S Öresund[49] were operated by DanLink[50][51] until the opening of the Øresund Bridge in July 2000.

But the passenger train line Copenhagen–Oslo continued to be using the DSB ferries across the HH route until the bridge opened 1 July 2000.

Towards the end of "the old order", DSB finally replaced the "U-boats" M/F Helsingør and M/F Hälsingborg, which both had cafeterias below car deck, with ferries that had sailed on the Aarhus–Kalundborg route.

The first delivered was M/F Tycho Brahe (1991) thereafter M/S Aurora (1992)[48] but the third sister ferry was delayed, as the Danish and Swedish governments had signed the deal to build the Øresund Bridge.

In order to maintain the capacity, two larger former DSB ferries from Great Belt complemented the Scandline fleet temporarily.

[53] Sundbusserne was sold in the autumn of 2006, the buyers were another Norwegian shipping line, Eitzen Holdings, and by May 2007 was the name shifted to Ace link.

According to this law half of the terminal in Helsingør was expropriated in order to re-establish a second competing shipping line on the route.

Two of the four ferries are scheduled to be converted to full electric propulsion with 4 MWh batteries each, being recharged from land by a robot when docked.