A new boat elevator, capable of lifting the shipping equivalent of 1,600 elephants in one go, opened last week on the Oder-Havel Canal, which connects the Polish port of Szczecin to Berlin.
The huge elevator, which moves ships up 36 meters, avoiding the need for a series of locks, will eventually replace an older one nearby, built in 1934 but no longer sufficient for today's volume of traffic. The old elevator will be phased out by 2025.
The new structure is 30 metres longer than its predecessor, and was originally supposed to be in service in 2014. It was held up by late deliveries, bankrupt suppliers, labor shortages and the pandemic. Local press made joking comparisons to the new Berlin Airport, which also ran years behind schedule.
The old lift was the tallest in the world when it was built, but the new one is not; the record is now held by the 113-metre lift at the Three Gorges Dam in China.
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