The Torne River Railway Bridge is a dual gauge railway bridge between Haparanda, Sweden and

Tornio Tornio (; sv, Torneå; sme, Duortnus ; smn, Tuárnus) is a city and municipality in Lapland, Finland. The city forms a cross-border twin city together with Haparanda on the Swedish side. The municipality covers an area of , of which is ...

Finland Finland ( fi, Suomi ; sv, Finland ), officially the Republic of Finland (; ), is a Nordic country in Northern Europe. It shares land borders with Sweden to the northwest, Norway to the north, and Russia to the east, with the Gulf of B ...

; the 1524mm rails used for Finland, the 1435mm rails used for Sweden. A temporary ice river track was built over the

Torne River The Torne, also known as the Tornio ( fi, Tornionjoki, sv, Torne älv, , se, Duortneseatnu, fit, Tornionväylä), is a river in northern Sweden and Finland. For approximately half of its length, it defines the border between these two countr ...

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. A small

aerial lift An aerial lift, also known as a cable car or ropeway, is a means of cable transport in which ''cabins'', ''cars'', ''gondolas'', or open chairs are hauled above the ground by means of one or more cables. Aerial lift systems are frequently employe ...

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, and this was the main gateway between Russia and Western Europe during World war One. The aerial lift was removed when the railway bridge was operating. Torne River Railway Bridge map

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 Finnish-gauge yard in Haparanda). Passenger trains also went over the bridge but have been withdrawn; the Finnish Railways ended passenger traffic to the Swedish side gradually between 1984 and 1988 while the last SJ passenger train left Haparanda in 1992. A train between

Boden, Sweden Boden (, outdatedly ) is a locality and the seat of Boden Municipality in Norrbotten County, Sweden with 16,847 inhabitants in 2018. It is part of the larger area around coastal city Luleå some southeast. After Kiruna, it is the second largest to ...

and Haparanda was tried in the early 2000s, but was stopped as it was unprofitable. As of 2014, Green Cargo is shunting in Tornio, usually once or twice a day on weekdays and Saturdays. VR will shunt in Haparanda, if necessary. Current cross-border traffic consists of containerized goods and freight from

Outokumpu Outokumpu Oyj is a group of international companies headquartered in Helsinki, Finland, employing 10,600 employees in more than 30 countries. Outokumpu is the largest producer of stainless steel in Europe and the second largest producer in the A ...

. Cross-border freight transport is expected to increase on the Swedish side with construction of the new railway line between Kalix and Haparanda.

Technical details

The bridge is 245m 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.

References

Railway bridges in Sweden Railway bridges in Finland Bridges completed in 1919 Tornio {{Sweden-bridge-struct-stub