Railroad Navies

[NP Eddie]

ALL:

The recent post about railroad car ferries led to me ask about the railroad navies in New York (or other places).

I remember seeing photos of Erie and New York Central tug boats guiding lighters (barges with railcars secured to the deck. I believe that those tugs went from the New Jersey side to the Manhattan rail yards.

Which other railroads had navies and where were their transfer points?

Are the railroad navies still used?

Ed Burns

Happily retired NP-BN-BNSF from Minneapolis, MN

[daveklepper]

There are previous posts that discussed this.  Nearly all freight railroads serving the New York area had tugboats and barges (usual) and/or freight-car carrier boats (unusual).   In addition, up to summer 1939 and the emergence of the German U-boat menace, the Central Vermont RR served New York directly with its own New London - NY steamship line, with docks and a freight terminal on the east river.  In conjunction with the CN, it advertized freight rates to USA West-Coast destinations lower than all-rail rates.  The NYC's NJ terminal and docks for its barges were, of course, at Weehawken, the DL&W's adjacent to its passenger terminal, still in use by NJT, at Hoboken, the CofNJ and Erie at their passeger terminals in Jersey City.  The PRR's was at Greenville, still used by Conrail Shared Assets, for the Cross Harbor RR that is the only remaining trans-Hudson railroad navy operation in the area.  The B&O's was not in New Jersey, but on the Staten Island Rapid Transit at ST. George and at Clifton, with the existing restored rail connection to the CofNJ. former main line, now industrial spur, again Conrail, in Bayonne.  The NYNH&H, as well as the LIRR, used the Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, terminal used today by New York and Atlantic, the LIRR short-line freight operator, and CrossHarbor.  Cross Harbor also connects with the South Brooklyn, the freight operator in Brooklyn of the Transit Authority and Bush Terminal, at 39th Street, Brooklyn, where PRR and NYNH&H barges connected in the past.  In addition to running freights under a NYNH&H electrfication of the LIRR BAy Ridge branch, the NYNH&H also had docks at Oak Point in the Bronx, and the LIRR at Long Island City.  The DL&W, Erie, CofNJ, and B&O, all had Hudson-River West-Side docks and freight houses served by barges, with their own tracks and assigned switcher locomotives, which were an early application of diesel power, CofNJ's 1000 box-cab being the very first.  There were some independent freight terminals served by any and all of the railroad navies, such as Brooklyn's Eastern District Terminal, the last use of steam for revenue service in the New York area, with the NYNH&H Van Ness (The Bronx) two shop switchers lasting a few years longer to 1957.  On the Bay Ridge Branch, LIRR freights were steam, then diesel, but after 1931, NYNH&H freights were electric, 11,000v ac, with all Bay Ridge switchers LIRR 0-6-0 11,000V box-cabs, identacle to the PRR electric switchers used at Sunnyside, Penn Station, 30th St, Philly, and Harrisburg.

[DSchmitt]

Check out this site: http://members.trainweb.com/bedt/IndustrialLocos.html ..... Some books: New York Harbor Railroads in Color Vol 1 by Thomas R. Flagg ..... New York Harbor Railroads in Color Vol 2 by Thomas R. Flagg ..... Brooklyn's Waterfront Railways, A Pictorial Journey by Jay Berndersky ..... Tugboats of New York, An Illustrated History by George Matteson

[MidlandMike]

There were car ferries through out the Great Lakes, Atlantic Canada, Gulf Coast, Alaska, and others.  Before ICC make the railroads divest themselves, they had ocean going ships. 

[DS4-4-1000]

The Reading operated car floats from Philadelphia PA to Camden NJ and from Pigeon Point DE to Deepwater NJ.  They also operated barge deliveries of coal in New York Harbor from Port Reading NJ and may also have operated car floats there .  I would not be surprised if the Reading had other barge traffic in Philadelphia and New York but I do not have any evidence.

Before the PRSL merger occurred the Reading also operated ferries from Philadelpha to Camden.

[rcdrye]

Santa Fe and WP had carfloats on San Francisco Bay until around 1980.  Milwaukee had several carfloat operations on Puget Sound, one of which lasted (as Seattle and North Coast) into the late 1980s.

[rcdrye]

Bay Coast Railroad has rights to operate carfloats from Cape Charles to Norfolk VA on Chesapeake bay but has not done so for at least a year.

[DSchmitt]

The Southern Pacific Railroad had a very large "navy" Including but not limited to over the years ------ Ocean shipping: -- East coast - New York to New Orleans and Galveston, New Orleans to Havana -- West Coast - San Francisco to Panama & intermediate points. - San Francisco to Hawaii, Japan, China and the Philippines. -- Oil tankers - California, Washington, Oregon, Alaska and also to Hawaii ----- Sacramento River and San Francisco Bay - River Boats, Passenger Ferries, Railroad Car Ferries ------- Texas and Louisiana - River Boats - Railroad Car Ferries -------- Book -Southern Pacific Water Lines by David E. Myrick

[JimValle]

The Pennsylvania Railroad owned and operated a large fleet of passenger/freight steamboats on Chesapeake Bay under the corporate name of Red Star Line. These boats served landings on all the major tributaries of the bay until the PRR quit the business during the Great Depression.

[narig01]

This is the Wikipedia entry

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Car_float

And a map of the Cross Hudson mostly passenger operations.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f2/New_York_City_Railroads_ca_1900.png

Rgds IGN

[daveklepper]

Boosting to permit easy addition of two DLY&W ferry-boat pictgures this evening.

[wjstix]

The DM&IR owned a Tugboat (Edna G) that guided ore boats in and out of the ore dock complex at Two Harbors, MN.

http://www.heartlandrails.com/photos/pv.asp?pid=1448

Since there are no connecting lines up the north shore of Lake Superior, freight cars were transported by boat from Duluth to Thunder Bay, ONT for many years. Must be one of the longest distance movements of freight cars on water?

[CSSHEGEWISCH]

If my memory serves me right, carferry service on Lake Superior was relatively short-lived, only 1974 to 1992.  The boat was an open-deck (!) ferry named Incan Superior and was not a year-round operation.

[BigJim]

Maybe Firelock76 can tell us about the "Little Creek / Cape Charles Ferry" RR operation in Norfolk, Va.

[daveklepper]

Lackawanna ferry Arlington and the Liberty Street (Manhattan( Dock:

[MidlandMike]

wjstix

Since there are no connecting lines up the north shore of Lake Superior, freight cars were transported by boat from Duluth to Thunder Bay, ONT for many years. Must be one of the longest distance movements of freight cars on water?

The three car ferry/barge operations to Alaska would have been longer.  There was another Great Lakes long carferry operation many years ago almost the full length of Lake Michigan.  It was run by the Michigan & Wisconsin from northern Lake Michigan to Chicago.  They used wooden barges that didn't last to long.

[CSSHEGEWISCH]

CG Railway operates a carferry service across the Gulf of Mexico between Mobile AL anc Coatzacoalcos on a weekly basis with two carferries with a capacity of 115 cars.

[MidlandMike]

And don't forget Seatrain, NY to Texas.

In Canada there was the Newfoundland car ferry, that took standard guage cars over to the island, where std guage trucks were replaced with 3'6" guage trucks for the trip over the narrow gauge.

[rcdrye]

Also in Canada - CP's Slocan Lake operation reaching isolated trackage in southeastern BC. 

 

[daveklepper]

Also Canadian, CN,  Bordon - Prince Edward Island, freight and passenger  equipment with locomotive (GP-7 or GP-9 when I rode it), Moncton - Charlottetown mixed-train, connection to-and-from the Ocean Limited, to-and-from Montreal.