The Flensburg–Husum–Tönning Railway Company built the first railway line in the Danish

Duchy of Schleswig The Duchy of Schleswig (; ; ; ; ; ) was a duchy in Southern Jutland () covering the area between about 60 km (35 miles) north and 70 km (45 mi) south of the current border between Germany and Denmark. The territory has been div ...

. The line ('' Frederik den Syvendes Sydslesvigske Jernbane'') opened in 1854 and was one of the first Danish railways.

Organisation and construction

The ''Flensburg-Husum-Tönninger Railway Company'' (, , FHTE) was owned by the British entrepreneur, Sir Samuel Morton Peto and built its trunk line during the reign of

Frederick VII of Denmark Frederick VII (Frederik Carl Christian; 6 October 1808 – 15 November 1863) was King of Denmark from 1848 to 1863. He was the last Danish monarch of the older Royal branch of the House of Oldenburg and the last monarch, king of Denmark to r ...

from 1852 to 1854. The company also built the port railways in

Flensburg Flensburg (; Danish language, Danish and ; ; ) is an independent city, independent town in the far north of the Germany, German state of Schleswig-Holstein. After Kiel and Lübeck, it is the third-largest city in Schleswig-Holstein. Flensburg's ...

and

Tönning Tönning ( German; Low German ''Tünn'', ''Tönn'' or ''Tönnen''; Danish: ''Tønning''; North Frisian: ''Taning'') is a town in the district of Nordfriesland in the German state of Schleswig-Holstein. History Tönning was destroyed in the ...

. A major reason for the creation of a rail link between the

Baltic Baltic may refer to: Peoples and languages *Baltic languages, a subfamily of Indo-European languages, including Lithuanian, Latvian and extinct Old Prussian *Balts (or Baltic peoples), ethnic groups speaking the Baltic languages and/or originatin ...

port of

and the

North Sea The North Sea lies between Great Britain, Denmark, Norway, Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium, and France. A sea on the European continental shelf, it connects to the Atlantic Ocean through the English Channel in the south and the Norwegian Se ...

ports of

Husum Husum (, ) is the capital of the ''Kreis'' (district) Nordfriesland in Schleswig-Holstein, Germany. The town was the birthplace of the novelist Theodor Storm, who coined the epithet "the grey town by the sea". It is also the home of the annual i ...

and especially

on the

Eider The eiders () are large seaducks in the genus ''Somateria''. The three extant species all breed in the cooler latitudes of the Northern Hemisphere. The down feathers of eider ducks and some other ducks and geese are used to fill pillows and qu ...

estuary was the export of live cattle to England. A temporary station was commissioned on 1 April 1854 and the permanent “English" station was fully opened in Flensburg on 4 October 1854, with a formal inauguration by the King on 25 October. At the same time, an important branch line was opened from Oster-Ohrstedt via Klosterkrug (now a station in the

city of Schleswig Schleswig (, , ; ; South Jutlandic: ''Sljasvig''; ) is a town in the northeastern part of Schleswig-Holstein, Germany. It is the capital of the ''Districts of Germany, Kreis'' (district) Schleswig-Flensburg. It has a population of about 27,000, t ...

) to

Rendsburg Rendsburg (, also ''Rensborg'', , also ''Rensborg'') is a town on the Eider (river), River Eider and the Kiel Canal in the central part of Schleswig-Holstein, Germany. It is the capital of the ''Kreis'' (district) of Rendsburg-Eckernfoerde, Rends ...

, connecting to the Neumünster–Rendsburg line—opened on 18 September 1845 by the ''Rendsburg-Neumünster Railway Company'' (''Rendsburg-Neumünsterschen Eisenbahn-Gesellschaft'', RNE)—which in turn connected with the Hamburg-Altona–Kiel line. An extension to the north from Holzkrug in Flensburg to

Haderslev Haderslev (; ) is a Denmark, Danish town in the Region of Southern Denmark with a population of 22,405 (1 January 2025).Kingdom of Prussia The Kingdom of Prussia (, ) was a German state that existed from 1701 to 1918.Marriott, J. A. R., and Charles Grant Robertson. ''The Evolution of Prussia, the Making of an Empire''. Rev. ed. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1946. It played a signif ...

and

Austria Austria, formally the Republic of Austria, is a landlocked country in Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine Federal states of Austria, states, of which the capital Vienna is the List of largest cities in Aust ...

in 1864 and its subsequent annexation by Prussia in 1866. On 29 December 1866, a section between Eggebek and Oster-Ohrstedt was abandoned and replaced by a more direct connection to Jübek on the new north-south line opened between Klosterkrug and Eggebek, where it connected with the line to Flensburg. In 1886 a connection was built between Platenhörn on the Husum–Tönning line and a junction at Hörn on a new extension of the

Marsh Railway The Marsh Railway () is a main line in the state of Schleswig-Holstein in Germany that links the stations of Elmshorn in the south and Westerland on the island of Sylt in the north. It is part of long route from Hamburg-Altona to Westerlan ...

from

Heide Heide (; Holsatian: ''Heid'') is a town in Schleswig-Holstein, Germany. It is the capital of the ''Kreis'' (district) Dithmarschen. Population: 22,000. The German word ''Heide'' means "heath". In the 15th century four adjoining villages decide ...

to Husum, which ran a little to the east of the Tönning line. In 1902, the old line between Husum and Platenhörn was dismantled. In 1928, the current Flensburg station replaced the old terminus at the end of the fjord, which became Germany's first

bus station A bus station, bus depot, or bus interchange is a structure where city buses or intercity buses stop to pick up and drop off passengers. A bus station is larger than a bus stop, which is usually simply a place on the roadside, where buses can st ...

. As a result of restructuring, the Flensburg-Husum-Tönning line now forms parts of three different rail lines: * Neumünster–Flensburg, * Husum–Kiel and * Husum–Bad St. Peter-Ording.

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Flensburg-Husum-Tonning Railway Company Rail transport in Denmark Defunct railway companies of Germany Railway lines in Schleswig-Holstein