Perfectly put, Mr. Willison. I can see in my mind's eye exactly the scene you describe. In early March the boats were readied for the season and the Cuyahoga bridges began to go up & down with greater frequency. Great Lakes Towing Company's tug boats also got into the action and coal smoke scented the air of the Flats once again. Over in Ashtabula the local Catholic priest every year went down to the harbor and blessed the ore boats & their crews for the new season. (In Gates Mills, outside of Cleveland in "hunt country" the Episcopal rector used to bless the foxhounds at the start of that season!)
Speaking of ore boats and Ashtabula, I think I read that CSX is closing the loading docks there; I'll bet that's the end of the Ashtabula to Youngstown line that saw NKP 765's two fantrips last year.
Lake Erie seems empty without all those working boats.
Nkp guy I can remember this time of year when their be a dozen or so Lakers laid up in the Cleveland harbor. Never forget the sight of a steamer on the horizon, seeing only the front house and stack leaving a trail of coal smoke. Some time progress sucks.
Seems worth bumping this thread to state that as of last Thursday, the SS Badger is officially a National Historic Landmark.
The Department of the Interior made the announcement, so it's the real deal this time. Hopefully it's an asset to Lake Michigan Carferry in the coming years and if nothing else, it's nice to see this vessel be honored with the desigination.
great article. A friend and her family rode the Badger over 30 years from Chicago,and I didn't even know if it was still running. Glad to hear it is.
Apparently they jumped the gun a bit on the Badger Historical Landmark status. Not everyone has officially signed off yet. The local Congressman was also having to backtrack. Hopefully it will become official soon.
http://www.imediaethics.org/associated-press-retracts-steamship-car-ferry-s-s-badger-not-a-national-historic-landmark/
NKP guy Although I've never seen Badger except in photos, this is very good news. Anything anyone can do to keep the heritage of steam power going is worth it. Good news about Alpena, too. Weren't those old ore boats magnificent vessels? When I get to Cleveland and look out onto the lake, it's dismaying to see nothing coming into or out of the harbor, while only 40 or so years ago it seemed there was always an ore boat coming and going. Enjoy both ships for me, Leo. Be sure to post a few photos here. And may God bless Strs. Badger & Alpena and all who sail on them.
Although I've never seen Badger except in photos, this is very good news. Anything anyone can do to keep the heritage of steam power going is worth it.
Good news about Alpena, too. Weren't those old ore boats magnificent vessels? When I get to Cleveland and look out onto the lake, it's dismaying to see nothing coming into or out of the harbor, while only 40 or so years ago it seemed there was always an ore boat coming and going.
Enjoy both ships for me, Leo. Be sure to post a few photos here.
And may God bless Strs. Badger & Alpena and all who sail on them.
Remember it taking a hour to go from B&O's Clark Ave. yard to Whiskey Island as the route had multiple drawbridges and the vessels traversing the Cuyahoga River to deliver their cargo or return to the lake for the next trip. What entered the river bow first went back to the lake stern first with tugs manuvering the vessels in both directions.
Never too old to have a happy childhood!
Thought that I'd bump this thread and say that the Badger passed her 5 year with flying colors and is back at her home port. And her drydock companion, the SS Apena, is being rebuilt for continued service as a steam powered freighter after her recent incident in drydock that heavily damaged her aft section.
And happily the Badger has finally received her long sought National Historic Landmark designation.
Ol' Dick in Illinois probably isn't a happy camper today.
Bad fire in Bayship's drydock in the stern of the Alpena, which is docked with the Badger for her 5 year survey also. She's the oldest operating steamer in the American fleet and has been extensively damaged it sounds in her crew accomodations and galley, although her engine room spaces seem to have escaped harm. I think the Badger is fine though.
I hope that she's not a write off or that this leads to her being notched and turned into an ATB. :(
CMStPnP wrote;
Thats why I am surprised CP or CN hasn't partnered with a MI railroad for this. Interestingly I think CN's track to Manitowoc is still in really decent shape I was just up there last August and it looks like Class I track most of the way into the city of Manitowoc.
Using the S.S. Badger or other ferry across the lake to bypass Chicago would be a bit of a trip with the old C&O line across Michigan gone. Having to go south from Ludington to Grand Rapids to the CSX would likely add enough time to make Chicago as quicker.
Leo_Ames The Badger will depart at 9:30 tomorrow morning for her tow to Sturgeon Bay. tdmidget There is NO museum ship with an intact reactor. The Savannah has none but the auxillary boiler is intact. Then how did they extract it from the Nautilus without partially scrapping her?
The Badger will depart at 9:30 tomorrow morning for her tow to Sturgeon Bay.
tdmidget There is NO museum ship with an intact reactor. The Savannah has none but the auxillary boiler is intact.
Then how did they extract it from the Nautilus without partially scrapping her?
It was dumped into the ocean as were the other early reactors. The naval shipyard at Mare island spent almost 2 years on the decommissioning and reconstruction as a museum. Decomissioning a nuclear submarine consists foremost of removal of the reactor segment of the hull. Most are stored at the Hanford reservation but the early ones were dumped at sea.
Not a pleasure trip for everyone. Truckers save a lot of miles and traffic congestion of the northern Indiana and Chicago by taking the old girl.
For the rest of us, its a pleasure Trip.
Right, the Republic Seabee! Jeez, what was I thinking? My airplane nollij is fading away. Funny, considering I grew up not far from thier plant in Farmingdale, New York and the old man kept his Stinson there.
Here in Canada there are a lot of Lake Amphibians and other floatplanes. Many of the cottages up North have seaplanes tied up outside. More like mansions than cottages, naturally but that's another subject.
54light15 ... unless you include that floatplane with the pusher propellor whose name escapes me.
I don't remember a Grumman pusher amphibian. Republic had the Seabee that turned into the Spencer Air Car, and there is the glorious family of Lake amphibians... is it one of those?
Not to say that Grumman didn't have some of the finest small amphibians anywhere. One of them is the basis for the somewhat amazing Turbine Mallard.
I coulda sworn she said Wildcat. I guess I stand corrected! And I am familiar with the F3F Wildcat made by Grumman. I think the Hellcat is a nicer looking airplane, though. The later Tigercat and Bearcat were the last flowering of piston-powered Gummans I think unless you include that floatplane with the pusher propellor whose name escapes me.
http://sloanlongway.org/sloan-museum/collections-of-sloan-longway/automotive-collection/1944-buick-m18-hellcat-tank-destroyer
http://sloanlongway.org/sloan-museum/collections-of-sloan-longway/automotive-collection/1954-buick-wildcat-ii
54light15Nope, it was called a Wildcat. There's a lot of concept cars in the Sloane museum, such as the Bill Mitchell designed "Silver Arrow" based on a Buick Riviera and other interesting cars.
The first Wildcat wasn't until 1953, and was (and probably still is) almost certainly capable of far more than a piddling 60 mph...
(If I'm not mistaken, that's the Sloan Museum's Wildcat II in the background... note that none of these Buicks has a gun of appreciable size...)
Now, there was a Wildcat in the '40s, and it did have guns, and a radial engine, like the tank destroyer -- but it was made by Grumman and had wings.
tdmidgetThere is NO museum ship with an intact reactor. The Savannah has none but the auxillary boiler is intact.
tdmidget "That allowed the shipyard to build them itself, conserving steam turbines, uniflows (Skinner Unaflows were common engines for medium size warships like escort carriers where speed wasn't crucial), and diesels for other installations." No shipyard built the engines. They were Hamilton-Standard engines, built by Hamilton-Standard, Joshua Hendey Machine Tools, Iron Fireman, and others. Liberty builders were not established shipbuilders.
"That allowed the shipyard to build them itself, conserving steam turbines, uniflows (Skinner Unaflows were common engines for medium size warships like escort carriers where speed wasn't crucial), and diesels for other installations."
No shipyard built the engines. They were Hamilton-Standard engines, built by Hamilton-Standard, Joshua Hendey Machine Tools, Iron Fireman, and others. Liberty builders were not established shipbuilders.
Thanks
I'm most familiar with the Great Lakes and here, the shipyard that built the vessel typically built the reciprocating steam engine that went into her.
The main point stands though that going with this older design of propulsion allowed sailers that hadn't been on the oceans recently to go back to sea with technology they were already trained on and intimately familiar with, while allowing the conservation of the limited industrial capacity for producing equipment like reduction gears to be assigned to vessels where they were most needed (such as warships and fleet oilers in the case of geared steam turbines).
Nope, it was called a Wildcat. There's a lot of concept cars in the Sloane museum, such as the Bill Mitchell designed "Silver Arrow" based on a Buick Riviera and other interesting cars. They have a restoration shop there that is a fantasy land for anyone who restores old cars. There's everything a restorer could want! It's part of a local college's program and when I was there the project was a 1953 Buick Skylark convertible.
54light15Also, not to get away from ships, but the Sloane Museum in Flint, Michigan has a 1943 Buick Wildcat that can still travel at over 60 miles per hour!
You mean Hellcat, don't you? M18, "the GMC made by Buick..."
There were several submarines in the reserve fleet also and they were in the process of selling them to Venezuela as I recall. There was one very large cruiser that looked odd as it had its turrets removed to be converted to a communications ship. I imagine all those ships had long ago been turned into Toyotas. We used to say about the Guam, "Sell this thing to Gillette!" It was sunk as a target in 1999 near Bermuda.
Interesting 54light, I remember the Iowa moored dockside and the Wisconsin moored outboard of Iowa, but don't remember a carrier moored outboard of both at all. Maybe I was overwhelmed by the battleships and just didn't notice.
I do remember those WW2 era mothballed cruisers, 8" gun ships if I remember correctly. Don't remember their names, however.
Firelock, the Guam was LPH-9. I came aboard in June of 1974 and we were on a Med cruise from that October to the following spring and then we went into the yards in Philadelphia and left the yards just before the Bicentennnial. I absolutely remember the straight flight deck carrier moored outboard of the two battleships. I'm pretty sure it was an Essex class as the island had that angled smokestack at its stern part. There were a lot of other interesting ships sitting in the reserve fleet, some WW2 cruisers and lots of early destroyers that were tiny compared to now. Don't know the class of them, sadly.
Another thing, we were supposed to go to New York for the Bicentennial, but our captain had other ideas. We spent the entire summer cruising past Virginia Beach having drills. We'd pull in on Friday and out again on Monday and there were guys who would pay $100.00 to have someone take thier weekend duty so they could see their families. It was so weird, being at sea and watching Norfolk television.
Leo_Ames Since we're talking ship speeds now, the USS Wisconsin broke 39 knots in Chesapeake Bay in 1945. Not too shabby for a nearly 900' battleship. :) And her sistership the New Jersey sustained 35 + knots for over six hours on her shakedown cruise in 1968 when she was reactivated for service in Vietnam (A job she did too well at since the North complained in Paris that she was a "destabilizing influence" and Washington in their infinite wisdom sent her back to mothballs and killed a few more pilots on jobs that 16" battleship shells could've handled in a region where most targets were within range of her main guns). And I think the top speed of super carriers remains classified right on down to the Forrestal, which is one of a good half dozen or so American victims in the last 20-25 years that I think is a tragic loss for maritime preservation. The Nimitz class hull profile is an evolution of the Forrestal and Kitty Hawk classes, so they've kept a tight lid on it. She was the last US carrier laid down with an axial flight deck, first launched with a angled deck, first super carrier, was a survivor of a horrible fire off the coast of Vietnam that came close to forcing her to be abandoned, saw a lot of active service in Vietnam, and she was oil fired and had no nuclear worries that would prevent her preservation these days with the navy's no nuclear museum policy of recent years (Despite the Nautilus and America's sole nuclear powered cargo ship being preserved in earlier years and security and preservation of her nuclear engine room spaces for decades to come being cheaper than the cost of scrapping). If a super carrier is to be preserved, her history made her the best candidate. Not many selections left these days that are even possible. I think only the Kennedy and Kitty Hawk haven't had their death warrants signed or already been disposed of via scuttling or scrapping down in Brownsville, remaining on donation hold the last I heard. CMStPnP I believe another feather in the Badgers cap is it can travel through light ice over conditions on the lake as it has a reinforced hull that will break ice up to a specific thickness..........read somewhere this was true, might not be as I am relying on my memory again which can be faulty. Lake Express is only a fair weather Ferry and cancels the trip in anything resembling moderately rough seas. Too unreliable for rail service, IMO. She was built for year round service and can indeed break a lot of ice. And she's a good heavy weather ship and is able to maintain service, safety, and passenger comfort in conditions that her competitor stays at port for.
Since we're talking ship speeds now, the USS Wisconsin broke 39 knots in Chesapeake Bay in 1945. Not too shabby for a nearly 900' battleship. :)
And her sistership the New Jersey sustained 35 + knots for over six hours on her shakedown cruise in 1968 when she was reactivated for service in Vietnam (A job she did too well at since the North complained in Paris that she was a "destabilizing influence" and Washington in their infinite wisdom sent her back to mothballs and killed a few more pilots on jobs that 16" battleship shells could've handled in a region where most targets were within range of her main guns).
And I think the top speed of super carriers remains classified right on down to the Forrestal, which is one of a good half dozen or so American victims in the last 20-25 years that I think is a tragic loss for maritime preservation. The Nimitz class hull profile is an evolution of the Forrestal and Kitty Hawk classes, so they've kept a tight lid on it.
She was the last US carrier laid down with an axial flight deck, first launched with a angled deck, first super carrier, was a survivor of a horrible fire off the coast of Vietnam that came close to forcing her to be abandoned, saw a lot of active service in Vietnam, and she was oil fired and had no nuclear worries that would prevent her preservation these days with the navy's no nuclear museum policy of recent years (Despite the Nautilus and America's sole nuclear powered cargo ship being preserved in earlier years and security and preservation of her nuclear engine room spaces for decades to come being cheaper than the cost of scrapping).
If a super carrier is to be preserved, her history made her the best candidate. Not many selections left these days that are even possible. I think only the Kennedy and Kitty Hawk haven't had their death warrants signed or already been disposed of via scuttling or scrapping down in Brownsville, remaining on donation hold the last I heard.
CMStPnP I believe another feather in the Badgers cap is it can travel through light ice over conditions on the lake as it has a reinforced hull that will break ice up to a specific thickness..........read somewhere this was true, might not be as I am relying on my memory again which can be faulty. Lake Express is only a fair weather Ferry and cancels the trip in anything resembling moderately rough seas. Too unreliable for rail service, IMO.
She was built for year round service and can indeed break a lot of ice. And she's a good heavy weather ship and is able to maintain service, safety, and passenger comfort in conditions that her competitor stays at port for.
There is NO museum ship with an intact reactor. The Savannah has none but the auxillary boiler is intact.
No shipyard built the engines. They were Hamilton-Standard engines, built by Hamilton-Standard, Joshua Hendey Machine Tools, Iron Fireman, and others. Liberty builders were not established shipbuilders. Those were occupied with military vessels. The war production board governed who built what and they would have never allowed a huge foundry and machine shop just for one company and one type of engine. Shipyards built ships. Foundries poured iron. Machine shops machined what ever was within their capabilities. Huge companies might venture into new ground, such as Ford with B24s and Chrysler with tanks. These were extensions of their primary specialty which was assembly.
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