Greetings,
Why must a pene exclave or enclave necessarily exist in this case?
Nocie photo - it shows the concept of a hole or tube of sovereignty
under a bridge, a perpendicular tube below the surface which
"interrupts" vertical sovereignty, is not hard to contemplate.
Assume for a moment that the rail bed on the earth's surface where the
Vennbahn tracks lie is Belgian, along with it's airspace and the
depths of the center of the earth for the width of the rail bed,
except where the tracks cross a bridge for the distance under the
tracks needed to connect German parcels east and west of the tracks,
but which are below and underneath the elevation of the rail bed.
The treaty text to accommodate such a situation could read thusly (or
at least operate like this "on the ground", even IF the treaty didn't
go into such detail): "At the points where the tracks on the rail bed
that are Belgian sovereign territory traverse a bridge (including the
foundations and earthworks thereof), and where under that bridge a
roadway lies that allows for a connection of portions of the road that
are in German territory that lies east and west of the rail bed, the
length of the roadway that is equal to the width of the rail bed above
that portion of the roadway that is in Belgium, for the depth of the
roadway and its foundations and one meter below the foundation, as
well as the airspace under the archway of the bridge under which the
road passes, shall, for the width of the road, be German."
No exclave or enclave would be created in such a scenario. In fact,
in such a scenario, without the railway leaving Belgium, the current
exclaves of Germany west of the railway would not be exclaves anymore.
Even tall German trucks using the road would not violate Belgian
space, because the airspace under the arch is a tube of German
airspace high enough above the roadway for any vehicle to use that can
get under the arch without touching it. I left a meter under the
roadway in Germany so that the Germans could dig down a bit to remove
the roadway at some future time if it needed to replace it.
If you look at the photo carefully, you see roadway curbing on the far
side of the bridge, on the opposite side of the road from where the
vehicle is parked. It is German, appearing white, as is the curbing
in foreground portions of the road. Notice that there is no curbing
under the bridge itself; a difference one can see at other places
where one country's maintenance of roads designed according to their
regulations stop at a border, and continue on the other side in the
style of the other country. This may indicate the Belgians keep care
of road under the bridge in their fashion becuas it is Belgian. The
white vertical markers on the near side of the bridge, on the left and
right sides of the roadway are German style. Notice that there are no
such posts directly under the bridge, where the roadway might be
Belgian. It would be interesting to see if and when the water
dropping from the archway above roughed up the road enough that it had
to be resurfaced, at what length it would be repaired, and at which
country's expense it would be done, Belgian or German.
I believe the answer to the possessor of sovereignty of the space
under the arches is to be found, not in maps, but in the treaty,
protocols or administrative agreements to it.
Len Nadybal
Washington DC
--- In BoundaryPoint@y..., "Jesper & Nicolette Nielsen" <jesniel@i...>
wrote:
> No, I don't want to start an argument.
>
> I rather show a nice photo that Harry sent me:
>
> The van is in Germany, and so is the photographer, but the bridge is
Belgium. And is offcourse the Vennbahn.
>
> The road under must then be a tiny pene enclave as it can only be
reached via Germany.
>
> Unfortunately we found no border markers, maybe one by the tracks,
but it was all covered with moss, and it was dark and impossible to
find any inscribtions.
>
> I would like to see the Vennbahn topos of this bridge, but according
to Brendan the place is split between several maps, and are very
expensive.
>
> Jesper