My question concerns the type of railroad cars carried by the Ann Arbor, Grand Trunk Western and Pere Marquette/C&O car ferries on Lake Michigan. I’ve read that some of these boats had their decks raised to accommodate excess height cars such as hy cubes and auto racks. I’ve seen pictures of both double deck and triple deck auto racks being loaded onto an Ann Arbor ferry. Does anyone know if the big 86 foot auto parts hy cubes ever traveled on any of these boats? If so, can anyone refer me to some source of photos documenting this?
I believe all those cars still met normal clearance standards. It wasn’t until double stacks that clearances were raised so any of those cars might have been ferried.
IIrC, the 86 foot humonguboxes had the same clearance geometry as a tri-level auto rack, so if you have photos of the latter being loaded onto a car ferry the former would fit as well.
Then the question becomes, would there be a reason for routing a hi-cube in such a way that it would be carried by ferry. Most of those cars were in captive service, with special interior fittings for their usual lading. So, where was it loaded, where was it going, and did the route cross Lake Michigan? If the answer to the last part is ‘yes,’ then a high cube would cross both ways, loaded one way, empty the other.
Since they were relatively light for their length, they would probably have been loaded on an outside track.
Chuck (Modeling Central Japan in September, 1964)
I know I have an E-mail in my DT&I Modelers Group that the Ann Arbor Routed 86’ Hi-Cubes via ferry from the Ford Rouge plants to the Pickup Truck Assembley plant in Minneapolis, MN. Also involved were the SOO Line and the GB&W.
Rick J
Chuck,
Probably more accurate to say “many” ferried cars were in dedicated service. The Ford parts example is a good one.
But the ferry operators solicited business beyond that. I remember seeing ads touting the way at least one ferry avoided Chicago congestion when your “hot” load really needed to get wherever, fast. I’m trying to recall specifics of some of the other routing pitches made to shippers to take the quicker way across the lake, just my CRS isn’t helping tonight…[:S]
Exactly the sort of info I was looking for. Thanks much Rick.
The route and car type having been established leads to the next question.
Since the Ann Arbor and GB&W (not sure about the Soo) had hi-cubes, presumably their cars were in the pool.
Was any other roads equipment used?
Mike I totally agree. I was referring to the hi-cubes, not to the general run of ferried traffic, which could be anything, in cars belonging to anybody. The ferries, IIRC, were operated by railroads, and were simply another division with ship’s engines subbing for a locomotive.
Chuck (Modeling Central Japan in September, 1964)
My recollection is that the then-new large auto parts hi cubes came over from Michigan to Milwaukee Wisconsin to be sent down the C&NW “old line” (passenger main) from Milwaukee to Kenosha to the huge American Motors (“Rambler”) plant there. Whether they were brought over on the C&O car ferry or the Grand Trunk Western car ferry – Milwaukee had both in the 1960s – I do not know. I assume they were not shipped to Manitowoc WI but I cannot rule it out since the CNW served that ferry too.
These would have been high priority shipments – as Chuck calls them, hot loads. Maybe American Motors was not yet using “just in time” notions for shipments but it was not a leisurely form of shipment or warehousing and it was high priority and thus the presumed extra expense of the ferry shipment would have been justified.
What I do not know is how the ferry routing figured into the pooling arrangements for the cars. I recall reading, possibly in something written by Jim Hediger,that the percent of hi cubes of a particular road was a factor of the % that road figured in the routing. Thus there might be CNW hi cubes even though the C&NW had no track in the lower part of Michigan – but it did factor in the routing of the cars. So if certain surface railroads were eliminated by using the car ferry I do not know how that was factored in.
Dave Nelson
First of all I was incorrect that the SOO was in the mix, should have been BN, I was going by all the railroad routings that were available on the Ann Arbor decal that I used in decaling my cars.
Here is a quote of a conversation which included Jim Hediger from the MFCL Yahoo Group.
"At one time the GB&W had its own 85-foot hi-cubes in series 100-113. These cars
were later sold to the AA to become its series 69001-69011 series (pinted bright
orange with billboard lettering). .
A lot of the heavier auto parts (castings) traveled on skids in 50-foot, 70-ton
boxcars, or the 60-foot HD auto parts cars, so they may not have been real
obvious in the AA trains.
The AA also hauled a lot of sand from Yuma, MI (near frankfort) to Ford’s
Cleveland Castings Plant in bright orange 100-ton PS-2CD covered hoppers.
Jim Hediger
I am surprised to hear that autoparts moved over GB&W; I can’t recall ever
seeing a photo of that. I guess they would turn that over to BN at Winona?
I lived in Ann Arbor 1975-1980.
Tim O’
Tim:
Chances are the auto parts came from Dearborn and were headed for the Ford Twin
Cities Assembly Plant via DT&I- AA-GBW-BN.
The newer AA boats had increased clearances for Hi-cubes, and the traffic
avoided the Chicago terminal.
Regards,
Jim Hediger"
Rick J
In my search for photographic evidence, I ran across a couple of photos at the boat docks on the Wisconsin side. No hy-cubes, but nice pics.
Thanks to all for your input…Ed
It would appear that I’ve finally found visual confirmation of hy-cubes in the Ann Arbor’s Elberta yard.
While the linked video isn’t the clearest, it looks to me like the roofs of several of the big cars are visible around the middle of this clip. Nice footage of some auto racks being loaded aboard the car ferry too.
The C&O Historical Society might have some info. http://www.cohs.org
Or you could visit the last floating car ferry here in Manistee, MI
I drive by it almost daily. Here is the website… http://carferry.com/
JW
I found an extended version of the video previously linked. It clearly shows a couple of big hy-cubes being
loaded into the ferry around the 8:50 mark. Unfortunately shadows prevent identifying the road names…
I’ve been interested in the Delray,MI (Detroit) area, mostly concerning the C&O. In one of the C&O books I have, I think I’ve seen pictures of both hi cubes and tri-level auto racks on the ferries (car floats) going from Windsor to Detroit. There were also ferries in Port Huron and somewhere else on the east coast of Michigan too I think. One book revealed loaded tri-levels could not clear the Detroit-Windsor tunnel but empties would (just barely) so routing depended on load/empty status.
Just something more to think about. 
Morning Sun’s “C&O in Color, Vol. 2” has three photos of the car floats: one with an 86’ Chessie hy-cube aboard. The floats are certainly ungainly beasts, especially compared to the Lake Michigan car ferries, but would be easier to model, for sure.