In the greater scheme of things it doesn’t really matter if I don’t get an answer but while building my freelanced Detroit River Car Ferry, based on the Wabashs' Manitowoc and Windsor, I’ve got curious about how the ferries ran between Detroit and Windsor.
Now I imagine the crossing from the Wabash apron just upstream from the Ambassador Bridge on the Detroit side, was a straightforward reverse to clear the apron then forward the 1.6 miles to nose into the shared CNR apron adjacent Goyeau Street on the Windsor side.
With the ferries having twin screws and a rudder fore and aft, on the return journey did the ferry reverse from the CNR apron and then continue running in reverse until just downstream from the Wabash apron , then go forward to nose in to unload, or did the ferry actually turn to run bow first and then turn again?
As an aside, I note that port to port passing was the normal practice with oncoming vessels.
Cheers, the curious Bear. :geek:
One of the members of the mrr club I used to belong to was a captain on one of the ferries ....can't remember if it was the Detroit or the Windsor . The rail cars were transported by barge and tug boat back in the day but gave way to the ferry operation that I think had them going "forward" and "reverse" across the Detroit river rather than turning around . I'm building a model of the Windsor but am well behind on the task . The aprons you speak of are pretty well cleared out now with so-called "progress" of the Windsor water front .......
Northcornice, I have watched that clip a couple of times, while it is later than the period I’m modelling, it was still interesting, and I had hoped it might have shown how the ferry was attached to the apron, but alas, no. Thank you very much for your reply.
Teejay, what, if any, plans are you using to build the Windsor, and are there any progress photos? That aside it appears logical that there would have been a minimum of turning in the river. I found a photo taken in the late 40s and the river traffic was rather heavy. Unfortunately I managed to lose the link though.
Cheers, the Bear.
River traffic was heavy with the iron ore freighters running down to Zug Island with loads of taconite ( Edmund Fitzgerald ) but with most steel mills like River Rouge shutting down , river traffic is fairly sparse . There is also a pretty good current running from Lake St Clair , down the Detroit River on it's way to Lake Erie that would create havoc with turning a loaded ferry around ....they could be pretty tippy as it was .
I don't have pics of my project ( it is very " back burner "
) It started with a Voco Waterline Ferry kit that is terrible in quality and needs MAJOR kit bashing . Most of the details provided will be thrown away and scratch built .
T
The most common system was to use ferry vessels that could travel either direction controlled by a midships wheel house, and unload/load from either end.
This was the fastest and most efficient type of transport. OTH, the Pennsy line used ferries that had a wheelhouse at each end and loaded from either end.
I found a picture of one but this forum will not accept images, so here is the link.
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Further to TeeJay:
most of the water that goes over Niagara Falls flows through the Detroit river first. The Detroit looks a bit wider to me, but a lot of the Niagara water is diverted to power plants.
Thanks gentlemen for your replies. I don’t know why I do these things but I had looked up the flow speed for the Detroit River, and had thought that 1 and a half m.p.h was not that excessive, but it just goes to show you can’t beat local knowledge.
MountainiMan, during my research I was amazed by the variety in design for railroad ferries. Here’s a link to a photo of the Wabashs
Manitowoc which is the basis for my freelanced HO version......
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Cheers, the Bear.
Nice old pic of the Windsor waterfront when the train station was down there .....moved about a mile east many years ago . The aprons and industry you see in the pic are long gone ......essentially a parkland now .
teejay Wrote:Nice old pic of the Windsor waterfront when the train station was down there
Yes, I wish I had found it early in my research, on the other forum I frequent, correspondents dated it to 1953.
Even though my modelled era is the mid 50s I still use Google maps and street view, if only to give me a general lie of the land and had realised there had been a massive redevelopment of the waterfront area. I did get a pretty good look at the remaining apron counterweight mechanism at Windsor from street view.
There are more links I discovered on the Detroit River Ferries here...
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Cheers, the Bear.
It was bustling with train traffic back in the day , both passenger and freight . My first train ride in the early 50's , I was about 7 standing in Windsor station and they pulled up a steam loco , belching and roaring ......wonder I didn't pee my pants but I was both scared and captivated at the same moment ....probably where I got hooked on trains and then got my first O scale train set a year later . Good memories .
You probably have learned that there was a train tunnel running under the Detroit river a little further west of your last picture ....it served freight trains crossing the border . It was so narrow , allowing one train to squeeze through , that people trying to cross th border illegally through the tunnel , were killed, since they had nowhere safe to hide when the train bore down on them .
n0rthcornice:
thanks for that link. My grandfather was the PM freight agent in St Thomas for a time -- teens, early 20s?
Teejay, I presume that you’re referring to the Michigan Central Tunnel. I hadn’t realised about the illegal immigrants, but I did find the technique of how it was built unusual and interesting.
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Speaking of Shorpy, I had seen both those photos before Northcornice but not on that site, (Old Time Trains must be a magic source if you’re modelling Canadian Railways).
I had found this similar shot early on in my research and not only did it confirm that I should build a ferry but also came close to me backdating my future layout by 5 decades. (I had far too much invested in 50s locomotives and rolling stock, so eventually scotched that idea).
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plus a couple more shots that I found interesting...
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Cheers, the Bear.