Great information and terrific reading. Thanks again Wanswheel.
As we transitioned away from coal in the fifties for transportation and home heating so much was affected permanently. Then industry changed over and now power generation …and it will be permanent as well, eventually anyway. More changes will affect things yet again and permanently.
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I talked with Rev. Robert Clifford by phone and he informed me that they had a very ancient pump organ that he thinks had pipes but it was removed years ago.
[/quote above]
So… They are using an electronic now!
There were also some river car ferries. Wabash at Detroit/Windsor (later cut down to barges), Missouri-Illinois at St Genevieve Mo. , SP’s Carquinez Strait ferries made obsolete by the bridge, T&NO’s ferry across the Mississippi replaced by the Huey Long Bridges, and Sacramento Northern’s Ramon across the Carquinez Strait are some I can recall off-hand.
Don’t forget the nightly ferrying of the “Federal” from The Bronx, Oak Point NYNH&H yards to PRR NJ Greennpoint up to the opening of the Poughkeepsie Bridge. And the huge total barge operation that remained in New York Harbor, with a similar one Detroit-Windsor. The one remaining is now a Port Authority trans-Hudson operation, which seems to have a good future until construction of a Staten Island - Brooklyn freight railroad tunnel.
The post brought up a question about the Ann Arbor ferry crossing Green Bay and Lake Michigan that operated between Menominee Michigan and Frankfort Michigan. I saw this ferry in Memominee in the summer of 1957. The ferry passed through Sturgeon Bay Wisconsin on its way but did not stop. I also noticed that Milwaukee Road switched the ferry in Menominee not C&NW. Where were these freight cars on board bound for?
Except for Kewaunee and the connection with GB&W, most carferry traffic was local to the port on the western shore of the lake. It gave shippers a better rate for eastern destinations as opposed to going through Chicago.
There was another AA car ferry route to the the Upper Peninsular of Michigan, to Manistique. There it connected to the AA subsidiary Manistique and Lake Superior, which ran about 40 miles north to connections with the Soo (ex-DSS&A) and LS&I. This operaton lasted to about 1968.
I would like to update this thread if I may by asking a question here.
A number of years ago (in the 1980s I think it was) I recall a TRAINS Magazine article on a car ferry service on a long lake in western Canada. I think it was in B.C. but I’m not sure.
It was a very long lake (perhaps 100 miles or so - I’m guessing here) that lay in a general north-south axis. A rail line reached the south end of the lake where it terminated at a car float. The railway continued for a number of miles from the NORTH end of the lake with the two segments connected by car float.
Does anybody remember this or know what line that was? It could’ve been CNR or CPR or maybe it was a lumber company.
Any ideas on this?
Canadian Pacific
Canadian Pacific Railway
British Columbia Lake and River Services
R.L.Kennedy
Kokanee at Nelson, BC c.1896 Canadian Pacific Corporate Archives
Canadian Pacific Railway had a long history of marine service on the lakes and rivers of the Kootenay and Okanagan regions of southeastern British Columbia. Water was the best way and in many cases the only way, to reach these remote parts south of the CPR main line, an area with little population, few rail lines and fewer roads until later years. This resulted in a number of water connections between various railway lines, some isolated and some with different companies. All of this to serve mining operations and fruit orchards,
about as far apart in nature as you can get as well as tourists and regular travelers.
Lytton with cordwood fuel loading cargo and passengers at the head of Upper Arrow Lake.
Public Archives of British Columbia
The first significant operation in southeastern BC began with the incorporation on December 21, 1889 of the Columbia and Kootenay Steam Navigation Company Limited to work vessels on the Columbia River, Kootenay River and Koo