Europe - Northern Germany

Schiffshebewerk Lüneburg

June 1993, Scharnebeck, Germany

The largest lift locks in the world are not at Peterborough, Canada. The lift locks here at Scharnebeck, east of Lüneburg, are, with a vertical lift of 38m. This photo shows one of the locks a third of the way along.

Unlike the Peterborough locks, this one carries commercial river barge traffic. Also, unlike the Peterborough locks that use hydraulic pressure to counter-balance the two locks, the two Scharnebeck locks operate independently using massive weights to counter-balance the weight of the locks.

Other pictures like this one can be found at Germany North Album.