The theme around the railway Usedom seems worth telling because it is a history composed of opposites in a beautiful landscape and the immediate vicinity of the Baltic Sea. Thus the partial route section Ducherow - Swinemünde was built after some back and forth and because of the military interest to be able to reach the naval port Swinemünde by rail. Quite quietly, without any ceremony it was opened in 1876 and operated for two years as a private railway. Then it went into the possession of the Prussian state railway. Only in 1894 it was extended to Heringsdorf and 1911 it was extended to the side road to Wolgast ferry.

The central building of the route section was the bridge in Karnin, connecting the railway with the mainland. Indeed, there was initially also considerations to build a railway embankment from the southern shores of the Stettiner Haff to the island of Usedom. This would have been at least 8 km long. It never was made, instead the swing bridge in Karnin was built.

The daily operation of the swing bridge was very difficult for the staff, because everything had to be operated manually. To open or close the bridge the staff was ferried by a rowing boat to the middle bridge section and then moved the swiveling part of the bridge winched by hand. Only since the route were added with a second track the bridge gets a second swiveling segment and the mechanics of the bridge was motorized.

The increasing rail traffic on the route stressed the swing bridge over and in addition a peculiarity of the bridge made it difficult to operate. The swing bridge twisted daytime by unilateral sunlight, so that the tracks do not fit each other up to 2.5cm when closing. The staff had to force the track into the correct position with an improvised winch. Last but not least it was this design flaw that suggested the construction of a new bridge. Therefore, a lift bridge was built later, similar to the construction of the boat lift in Niederfinow.

The inauguration of the lift bridge in 1933 happend in the early days of the fascist dictatorship in Germany. The function of the railway of Usedom as part of the war industry became obvious. A further side route to the Peenemünde Army Research Center was added, the build up of an associated concentration camp in Karlshagen and the cancellation of the passenger traffic in the years of war prove this.

In distance to that time we decided for the swing bridge of the 1920s, not for the lift bridge. Compared to the Nazi period the twenties were a period with more hope to democratic developments. Much has been redesigned, was changed. New things take place and the increasing cosmopolitanism in cities like Berlin was influences by different cultures.

The German railway has been reformed and nationalized since 1920. The wagons were unified and the rules of the railway were revised. At island Usedom it meant standard steam locomotives (Einheitslokomotiven) and an increasingly more modern rolling stock.

In the last few days of World War II in 1945 the lift bridge in Karnin was blown up by the Wehrmacht army. It isolates the Usedom railroad from the mainland. After the end of the war Swinemünde was under Polish administration and the Ducherow - Swinemünde route section went to the Soviet Union as war reparations - the section was dismantled. A new railway ferry in Wolgaster Fähre connects the remaining route Wolgaster Fähre - Ahlbeck to the mainland since then. About this ferry no passenger traffic were done. From 1945 to 1990 it was regular used for freight wagons only.
Since 2000 a railroad track leads again to the island on the newly built bridge "Peenebrücke Wolgast".

Today, there are plans to rebuild the route Ducherow - Swinemünde. In Federal Transport Infrastructure Plan of 2015, the project was submitted.