Andreas Ratzlaff family emigration; Bremerhaven

Arriving in Bremerhaven, Germany, by train, the Ratzlaffs, Wedels and Unruhs boarded the SS Weimar on May 11, 1907 (SS stood for “steamship”).  See: http://www.norwayheritage.com/p_ship.asp?sh=weima or http://www.theshipslist.com/ships/lines/nglloyd.html for more details regarding the SS Weimar.  Here's a picture of the SS Weimar from 1891:

Here's a flyer from 1908 advertising the Norddeutscher Lloyd.  To the left is the shipping company's headquarters building in Bremen, Germany:

This map, from 1907, shows Bremerhaven, Germany, at the mouth of the river Weser in northern Germany.  The railway tracks entering the city from the south connect with Bremen, Germany, about 40 miles to the south:

Beginning in 1897, the Norddeutscher Lloyd began using the KaiserHaufen (“emperor port”) which had been specially constructed by the city of Bremerhaven to accommodate new, bigger steamships that were being used by the shipping company (http://en.bremerhaven.de/experience-the-sea/service-infos/city-history/the-kaiserhaefen-ports.24320.html

and

http://werften.fischtown.de/archiv/haefen1.html).

On this map from 1912, the KaiserHaufen can be seen to the north of AlterHafen (“old port”) and NeuerHafen (“new port”).  In German, railway station is Bahnhof.  The Guter Bahnhof (“better station”) can be seen just east of the KaiserHaufen, and from the Bahnhof, the train tracks come right down to the Norddeutscher Lloyd piers off KaiserHaufen and NeuerHaufen.  These may be the tracks that took the Ratzlaffs to the SS Weimar (Meyers Gazetteer of the German Empire).