Steamboats and other rivercraft - general discussion

[Cathead]

This thread has gone a bit dormant but I'm going to revive it with a very neat model I got to see recently. I was actually attending a model railroad convention, which included some personal layout tours. One fellow, in addition to a spectacular layout, had a scratchbuilt model of a real rail ferry that operated across the Missouri River at St. Charles (near St. Louis) in the early days of railroading. He gave me permission to share some photos here. 

This vessel operated until 1872, when a bridge was completed and its services were no longer needed.

 

This is in HO scale (1:87), the same scale as my current build Peerless (see signature). And for reference, here's one view of his layout, depicting Moberly, Missouri in extraordinary and highly accurate detail. This is on the same rail line as the ferry above served, though the layout is set almost 100 years later.

 

He's been writing a detailed article for the local railroad historical society and I told him about the NRG and encouraged him to submit the article to the NRG journal as well. 

 

I thought you all would enjoy this!

 

 

 

[wefalck]

Interesting subject! These 'Trajekts', as we call them in Geman and neighbouring languages, once have been quite common at places, where it would have been too difficult, not cost-efficient, or impossible to build bridges. Some of them are still in operation, although bridge-building has become more daring in recent years and they were laid off. In some cases there was joint use by railway carriages and vehicles.

- On Lake Constance, between Switzerland and Germany was one in operation for many years.

- At lower reaches of the River Rhine one took whole trains, including the engine

- At the German Baltic coast several connected islands with the mainland to allow through trains.

- There used to be a two-stage one that connected the German mainland with the island fo Fehmarn and then on to the Danish island of Lolland. In the 1960s the small rail ferry to Fehmarn was replaced by a bridge. I once took, just for the fun of it, the through-train from Hamburg to Copenhagen along this route.

- The once famous Trelleborg to Sassnitz train-ferry that connected Stockholm with the rest of Europe via Germany was discontinued after 111 years of service in 2020.

[Cathead]

Neat examples, wefalck! Steamboat ferries were fairly common on the Missouri River for a period of time, before bridges were finally built. But in winter they couldn't operate, so in some cases where the river froze solid enough, tracks were laid directly across the river ice, as in these examples from North Dakota:

 

1879 photo (University of Washington libraries)

 

 

1879 wood-cut print (North Dakota Heritage Center). Notice the steamboat drawn up on the bank for winter.

Edited April 30 by Cathead

[wefalck]

I seem to have read of similar examples from Russia, where tracks were laid across frozen lakes to provide short-cuts, rather than going around the lakes.

[Cathead]

I'd have no trouble believing that!

[wefalck]

The Dutch company Artitec makes some resin-kits of small German railway ferries around the island of Rügen (I think) in HO- and N-scale:

 

https://www.artitecshop.com/en/railroad-ferry.html

https://www.artitecshop.com/en/wittow-ferry.html

https://www.artitecshop.com/en/ferry-fehmarn.html - This one I remember seeing in operation, when we spent our summer holidays with may grandparents up at the Baltic coast.

 

 

 

 

[Roger Pellett]

A wonderful model!  Eric, I believe that you have a set of drawings for a similar railroad ferry in your stash.  Perhaps a future project?

 

Railroad car ferries also sailed on the Great Lakes, particularly on lakes Erie and Michigan.  On Eastern Lake Erie they transferred cars filled with Ohio mined coal across to Canada.
 

 Lake Michigan was a different problem as its axis is North South.  This means that it blocked railroads moving freight from Michigan to Wisconsin, Minnesota and points west.  Going around the south end of the lake meant that trains had to negotiate the crowded Chicago rail yards, an unacceptable solution.  Two railroads, therefore, operated very large purpose built car ferries across the lake.  These ferries operated year round, breaking winter ice.  As least two were lost in winter storms.  The last two, SS Badger and SS Spartan were built in the early 1950’s.  Both still exist although only Badger sails.  Today, she hauls passengers and their vehicles across the lake; no railroad cars.  Badger is the last coal fired reciprocating engine steamship sailing on the lakes.

 

There were also a number of paddle driven railroad car ferries that shuttled cars across the Detroit River.  The paddle wheels were driven by massive horizontal steam engines.  I remember seeing them in the 1960’s.

 

Roger

[Cathead]

Yep, Roger, I have those plans you gave me and they're in the someday mental file! I definitely thought of them, and you, as soon as I saw that model.

 

I've been hoping to take a trip on the Badger someday. 

[Cathead]

We recently spent a few days along the Upper Mississippi River (the stretch bordered by Minnesota, Wisconsin, and northern Iowa) and I thought a few photos and stories might be of interest to the general audience here. This part of the river is quite different from that below St. Louis; it's controlled by a series of locks and dams that create relatively stable pools for navigation, whereas below St. Louis the river is free-flowing. This also means that the whole valley is often filled with water, creating a maze of channels and islands that's actually more natural in appearance than the highly channelized lower river. Views like this also resemble what rivers like the Missouri used to look like before they were locked into permanent navigation channels and their complex forested floodplains transformed into dry farmland.

The bluffs along this stretch can rise over 400 feet above the river, giving dramatic views from various public lands, like this shot looking down on a toy-like towboat far below.

We were also fortunate to catch a large tow going through Lock & Dam 13 (just north of Fulton, Illinois), and set up a tripod so we could take time-lapse imagery of the whole process. I can't upload video here, but extracted a sequence of frames to show the process, which is pretty neat if you've never seen it done before.

 

This tow consisted of three columns of barges, two of which are four barges long and one just three, for a total of 11. The lock can only accommodate three barge-lengths without a towboat, so there's no way this whole massive tow can get through in one piece. So how is this impasse handled?

 

Here the lock is opening and you can see the tow approaching from downriver.

After some careful maneuvering, the towboat shoves its tow into the lock, with only a foot or so to spare on either side.

The tow is "broken" between the first and second rows of barges, and the towboat begins to back out of the lock with the first row, leaving rows 2-4 alone in the lock so the gates can close.

Once rows 2-4 have been raised to the upriver level, they're hooked to a little engine/winch that runs along an extended rail beyond the lock. This pulls the tow upriver out of the lock, beyond the upper gates, where it's tied off to await the rest.

Now the water is lowered again and the towboat enters with row 1.

A closeup of the towboat, a 6140 horsepower vessel built in 1976. It bears some resemblance to the Caroline N, subject of @mbp521's beautiful ongoing build, though they're not sister ships (second image from Towboat Gallery).

Once the towboat has been raised, it reunites its tow and proceeds upstream. I didn't record this part.

 

Anyone interested in watching how locking works should check out the live webcam streaming from Lock 19 at Keokuk, Iowa, which also monitors an active rail line running along the river next to the lock. This is mounted on a historic double-decker road/rail bridge, the upper portion of which has been converted into a pedestrian overlook of the lock and river and is a great place to hang out on a pleasant day and watch river/rail traffic. But you have to watch what you say, as the camera picks up voices from below (I have mixed feelings about that). This lock is longer than the one shown above and can accommodate a full 12-barge tow and towboat all at once.

 

And just to show that I'm an equal-opportunity transportation buff, here's a nice shot of a CPKC freight running downriver on a very active line.

 

[Dr PR]

The railroad ferry is of some interest for me. My grandfather was born in North Carolina about 5 years before the Civil War started. The war devastated the area so the family boarded a train headed west in about 1870. After a stop in Kentucky for several months they got on another train headed west.

 

He told my Father that they crossed the Mississippi River at Memphis, Tennessee. The cars were loaded onto a ferry (but not the engine - it was too heavy). On the Arkansas side another engine was hooked on and they continued the journey to the end of the rails where the railroad was being built. There was a small railroad town named Atkins, Arkansas, and that is where they settled. That is where my parents were born.

 

I have always thought it was an random series of events that brought them there. And the idea of crossing the river in railroad coaches on a ferry was interesting.

 

I have researched this a bit, and I think the first railroad bridge was built across the Mississippi River at Memphis in about 1871.

[mtaylor]

Great photos, Eric.  Brought back some good memories of sitting on the banks near one of the Locks and Dams (I forget which ones) and having just nice afternoon.

[Cathead]

Phil, that's a great story! I, too, think it would be fascinating to cross on a railroad ferry and have never done so. Mrs. Cathead grew up in northern Arkansas and we were just down in the Atkins area a couple years ago.

 

To the best of my knowledge, the first railroad bridge across the Mississippi was built at Rock Island, Illinois in 1856. That bridge is also famous for the lawsuit brought against it by steamboat interests, in which a young Abraham Lincoln represented the bridge interests; it went all the way to a landmark Supreme Court decision that firmly established the right to bridge waterways. This is a good article on the subject.