Please feel free to view this short film of my paddle steamer trip on Lake Lucerne. This was aboard the ship Unterwalden, named after a former forest canton in Switzerland, to the south of Lake Lucerne (now part of Obwalden and Nidwalden). There are five paddle steamers on Lake Lucerne in summer.
There have been steamers on Lake Lucerne since 1837, and the paddle steamers Uri and Unterwalden have been working on the lake since 1901 and 1902 respectively. Then, around 1960, a new road bridge was built, and, guess what, they made it too low for the paddle steamers to pass under! The solution? Make the parts of the Unterwalden that were too high to pass under the bridge (funnel, masts, wheelhouse and ventilation shaft) telescopic, so that they could be lowered for the ship to pass under the bridge, and then raised again to their full height. So that is what they did in 1961. My film shows the Unterwalden passing under the new bridge, and you see how tight a fit it is, even with the four high parts lowered. You also see how paddle steamers do not look “right” without the masts, funnel and ventilation tube raised: they were far more elegant in their original turn of the 20th century design.
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