#10 Thank You for a fine history point about the Ferries. I am 74 years old and once was a "Boxcar Wrangler" or Car Handler and Deck Hand. The last time I wheeled one of these ships was in June, 1978. That was SS Badger 43. Operated by the Mason County Transportation Authority and that was to Milwaukee and Back to Ludington. Yup! I grabbed "The Bull by the Horns" on several vessels. The SS City of Saginaw 31, SS Pere Marquette 21 & 22, the SS City of Green Bay (ex-SS Wabash), and the MV Viking . My name should also be on the "Crews List" on the SS City of Milwaukee". Thanks!
@@charliekezza Hello, Kez C, Memorial Day, 1971, I was handling the ship's wheel of the steamer SS City of Green Bay, and a Jr. Engineer plugged a TV set into the Radar Set, so we could watch the Indianapolis 500 car race. The ship is DC Powered, but the radar set had a AC converter in it. Captain Earl Kettleson and I enjoyed watching Parnelli Jones in his Turbine Car win 99 laps. Only to loose the last lap due to transmission failure! During the race, various crew members popped in and out of the Pilot House to catch a glimpse of the race. It was a beautiful day, bright and sunny with calm seas. I will always remember it, Thanks!
I was on, I think, on the badger in 1971. I was ten at the time. Our family did the loop. Milwaukee to Lundington, up through the UP into Canada and back down through Minnesota. My mother got sea sick. This was in early to mid summer 😂😂😂. I remember them loading the lower deck with train cars and upper deck with passenger cars. What a memory.
The first three ferries you feature were built to the same basic hull plans. Each was 338' long, not 383' as you stated for the Milwaukee. The Pere Marquette 18 and Milwaukee were virtually identical in size and configuration with extensive passenger cabins, the Marquette & Bessemer No. 2 was the freight-only version of the same boat. They were among nine boats built on the same basic hull design for three fleets on Lake Michigan and Lake Erie.
I'm from Memphis TN and on a multiple state motorcycle trip, I rode the Badger very cool. Didn't know it was a steam ship. Wiw that's awesome. Great presentation as usual
My Grandparents lived in Kewaunee, WI in the late 50s and early sixties. When our family visited, my younger brother and I would always be at the harbor watching the Ferry activity. We watched from a distance at the rear as the train cars were loaded. There was one occasion when one ferry was at the dock with 2 more circling out on the lake waiting to come in. Shortly after being married, my wife and I took our first cruise on the badger leaving Kewaunee for Ludington MI. I still have a video of that trip. I lived in Green Bay, WI and also enjoyed viewing long coal trains heading out of town for Kewaunee pulled by 6 Locomotives at times in notch 8. Such great memories of those days.
Thanks for your channel. ...I lived in Elberta , right across the bay from Frankfort. Your stories brought fond boyhood memories of seeing the ships come and go in and out of the harbor. My father and uncles worked on the ships, one uncle was a captain. I can still remember my excitement of going with my father on. one of his trips across the lake. Thanks again. By the way, the ships docked on the Elberta side of the bay, not the Frankfort side.
Great Presentation!!! I've always had an interest in Railroad Car Ferries and Car Floats. I remember as a child seeing them in Baltimore Harbor. In fact, as an adult, I bought a house in the Canton Neighborhood, in Southeast Baltimore one block above the harbor in 1976, and there were two car float Gantry's near my house, one was only two blocks away, that belonged to the Pennsylvania Railroad. The yard along with all the infrastructure of the loading ramp was still intact. Some time in late 1980’s the yard was torn up and turned into a City Waterfront Park and Korean War Memorial. The steel superstructure that raised and lowered the loading ramp is still there today. The second Car Float Ramp was maybe a quarter mile away in the Fells Point Neighborhood, also in Southeast Baltimore, and was owned by the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad, if I’m not mistaken some of that infrastructure may still be in place. This ramp is next to a very large warehouse that belonged the B&O, but has been converted into living space and offices. Barry P. Broyles
When will Jeff be giving another lecture? I am all the way in South Haven, but I travel the great lakes area a lot playing music and I come to Alpena a lot! Would love to catch one of these and maybe for once make small talk with someone who shares my interests of the maritime history on these glorious lakes!
Another carferry that sank was the Pere Marquette 3, which sank in the ice off Ludington in 1920. My dad was then 8 years old and skipped school to walk out on the ice to watch it sink. I have a photo of the sinking ship, and on the back of the photo my dad wrote about his adventure, and the fact that his mother spanked him when she found out. The ship was later raised and towed away to be scrapped. I myself worked summers for the Chesapeake and Ohio carferries in the 1960s. The fleet had 7 ships in those days, and I have sailed on every one of them.
That was an awesome presentation! I had no idea the Pere-Marquette 18 was found. What a credit to the diligence of shipwreck hunters! As for ships with open sterns, at least one major cruise ship has an open stern, with the space used for various means of entertainment. Given the ship is far larger and higher than any of those presented here, do you believe there is any risk in having such a design again? Again, great job!
Excellent presentation. It should be noted that the Marquette and Bessemer Navigation Company, in keeping with Jeff's statement that all the ferries were operated by railroad companies, was a joint venture of the Pere Marquette and the Bessemer and Lake Erie Railroads, hence the company's name.
The worst part of the sinking of the Milwaukee wasn't that Grand Trunk didn't install a radio, when they purchased it they actually removed the radio it was built with.
There was a fairly large open-deck carferry on Lake Superior, the Incan Superior. She could carry 32 rail cars and sailed from Superior to Thunder Bay from 1974-1992. She survives in the Vancouver area though she no longer carries rail cars.
Muskegon had 2 GT Boats, and had tracks running to them. We explored them many times growing up. They we in horrible condition. Now the Milwaukee Clipper is docked there. Old Great Lakes passenger ship.
back in the late 70’s-early 80’s we used to go out fishing off of Kewaune Wisconsin and there were three ferries that ran out of that port the Viking the City Of Milwaukee and the Badger and the Badger and the Viking had bow thrusters and the city of Milwaukee had to use its anchor to back around the corner into the dock we actually saw it drop anchor to late one time and it bumped into the highway bridge in town and also one morning we were fishing in the fog and it started to clear up and all of the sudden one of our other boats fishing with us hollered over the cb radio and asked if I had a eye on that big one and I turned and looked behind us and the Badger was so close behind us I couldn’t see the top of the ship and she never blew the horn luckily I punched the throttle and got out of the way but I always wondered why they never blew the horn in the fog and their radar should have showed me in their path
Very interesting and I myself have been on 2 train ferries where they took my passenger trains on a ferry and that was in Europe on the overnight train from Brussels to Copenhagen and it went on a ferry from Putgarten, Germany to Roby, Denmark.And another from Stockholm, Sweden to Copenhagen, Denmark too.When I went to New Zealand I saw a train ferry but it was only for freight between Wellington and Picton linking the North and South Island and you could see them putting the wagons on it.There's still a passenger one it Italy linking the mainland with Scilly. Must be a few others still going around the world.
There are still car ferries running on the Baltic Sea in Europe. A small historic one with open Deck for narrow gauge is in Restauration for the German island of Rügen.
Captain Mcleod was the first captain on the L.R. Doty and he went down with the Marquette & Bessimer no. 2. The LAST captain of the L.R. Doty, before it was scrapped... Ernest Mcsorley. The Doty was both captains first job as a captain. Kind of a crazy fact.
Check out the story of the Baikal. The car ferry built for the Trans Siberian Railroad. Built in England, then taken apart and shipped by rail to Russia's lake Baikal. Then proved useless for the 9 foot thick ice. Great story.
I got curious and looked into it thanks to your comment. It wasn't a car ferry, but rather an "ice-breaking train ferry" - and it indeed had a fascinating story. I mean, look at this tub... Compared to a newer Baikal heavy-duty ferry like "Angara" (which set sail two years later in 1900 and is still operational today, making it one of the oldest ferries in existence today), this ship barely looks like a ship, but it fits 800 tons of cargo, it does in fact break ice, and it's spent two decades in service - and only left service when the the Bolsheviks put machine-guns and cannons on it and Czech Legion had to use field artillery to sink it.
The Lake Baikal ferry was a copy of naval architect based in Detroit. A group of Armstrong Whitworth engineers visited Kirby and bought the plans and took them to Tyneside. I got this from a Newcastle museum. It was built for ice breaking. It was the St Marie which had a bow propeller which was invented in Mackinaw. Ice is up to 20 feet on the Great Lakes ( Lake Superior, northern Lakes Michigan and Huron. The St Marie was a successful ice breaker for 50 years. 9 foot ice was common in the Lakes and it’s incredible to say the Lake Baikal ferry could not handle 9 feet thick. Yes, the Bolshevik’s wrecked her.
@@robertdshannon5155 Safe to assume the bow propeller was for breaking the ice ? The Baikal had no such provision. It was built with the intention of it breaking thru the ice with it's sheer weight. But it would not. The Developers were told that the ice was 3 feet thick not 9. The Ivan's tried explosives and fire to no avail so the entire ferry transport idea was abandoned and the hardest section of the line was built around the lake instead.
Just to be accurate, the Badger is not the only car ferry still operating on Lake Michigan. There is also The Lake Michigan Express,but it is a modern high speed ferry, and I actually prefer the old and slow Badger!
What about the theory of it being part of the point, west of port Stanley, directly across the lake from Cleveland? The gentleman says it laid over making the turn to head to Cleveland, from ice. Says you can see on google maps, the coal leaking out now.
Kind of BS that they named the captain and crew somewhat responsible for trying too hard to save the pere marquette 18 when you know if they hadn't tried that hard, they would have likely blamed them for that. "Try to save your ship if you are taking on water, but dont try too hard." -Government Official
Something the presenter failed to mention is the Manistique Marquette and Northern No.1/Milwaukee was an almost identical sister of the Pere Marquette 18. He also neglected to mention other car ferry ports of Interrest on Lake Michigan like Manistique and briefly Northport and Gladstone, as well as Muskegon. He utterly neglected to mention the Lake Ontario Car Ferry company. All that esoterica could have added minutiae that would have made the presentation more interesting.
The 'Milwaukee' didn't possess, a radio (even wireless, as I assume they're were more, than that), by 1929🙄??? See where being CHEAP, gets you?? And human beings lives at stake, being used as collateral😔………… Something don't make sense, about the Milwaukees' sinking. If a railroad car crashed through the gates, the car would sink instantly. The Milwaukee would take time to sink, drifting all the time. It wouldn't land of top, of them. Sounds like the remaining cars, left the ship, as it was sinking, and Milwaukee landed on top of THEM, instead.
Hopefully the Badger will be shut down, or refitted for cleaner fuel. She doesn't burn clean, and has an exemption from EPA regulations. Obtaining an exemption is an admission that she doesn't meet clean air standards.
He's no longer a "local history teacher" he is now a "world wide history teacher who specialises in local history"
Love from Australia xxx❤❤❤
#10 Thank You for a fine history point about the Ferries. I am 74 years old and once was a "Boxcar Wrangler" or Car Handler and Deck Hand. The last time I wheeled one of these ships was in June, 1978. That was SS Badger 43. Operated by the Mason County Transportation Authority and that was to Milwaukee and Back to Ludington. Yup! I grabbed "The Bull by the Horns" on several vessels. The SS City of Saginaw 31, SS Pere Marquette 21 & 22, the SS City of Green Bay (ex-SS Wabash), and the MV Viking . My name should also be on the "Crews List" on the SS City of Milwaukee". Thanks!
You must have some stories to tell
@@charliekezza Hello, Kez C, Memorial Day, 1971, I was handling the ship's wheel of the steamer SS City of Green Bay, and a Jr. Engineer plugged a TV set into the Radar Set, so we could watch the Indianapolis 500 car race. The ship is DC Powered, but the radar set had a AC converter in it. Captain Earl Kettleson and I enjoyed watching Parnelli Jones in his Turbine Car win 99 laps. Only to loose the last lap due to transmission failure! During the race, various crew members popped in and out of the Pilot House to catch a glimpse of the race. It was a beautiful day, bright and sunny with calm seas. I will always remember it, Thanks!
I was on, I think, on the badger in 1971. I was ten at the time. Our family did the loop. Milwaukee to Lundington, up through the UP into Canada and back down through Minnesota. My mother got sea sick. This was in early to mid summer 😂😂😂.
I remember them loading the lower deck with train cars and upper deck with passenger cars. What a memory.
Well done, me ‘bye. Thank you for your service. 🎉
Living near Lake Erie, the Great Lakes have always fascinated me. Especially when the weather blows in. These lakes are nothing to mess with.
excellent lecture.I cant get enough of these Great Lakes stories.
The first three ferries you feature were built to the same basic hull plans. Each was 338' long, not 383' as you stated for the Milwaukee. The Pere Marquette 18 and Milwaukee were virtually identical in size and configuration with extensive passenger cabins, the Marquette & Bessemer No. 2 was the freight-only version of the same boat. They were among nine boats built on the same basic hull design for three fleets on Lake Michigan and Lake Erie.
A wonderful and informative narrative. Thank you so much.
I'm from Memphis TN and on a multiple state motorcycle trip, I rode the Badger very cool. Didn't know it was a steam ship. Wiw that's awesome. Great presentation as usual
Thank you for hosting this great event. Very interesting.
Very interesting subject and presentation
My Grandparents lived in Kewaunee, WI in the late 50s and early sixties. When our family visited, my younger brother and I would always be at the harbor watching the Ferry activity. We watched from a distance at the rear as the train cars were loaded. There was one occasion when one ferry was at the dock with 2 more circling out on the lake waiting to come in. Shortly after being married, my wife and I took our first cruise on the badger leaving Kewaunee for Ludington MI. I still have a video of that trip. I lived in Green Bay, WI and also enjoyed viewing long coal trains heading out of town for Kewaunee pulled by 6 Locomotives at times in notch 8. Such great memories of those days.
Thanks for your channel.
...I lived in Elberta , right across the bay from Frankfort. Your stories brought fond boyhood memories of seeing the ships come and go in and out of the harbor. My father and uncles worked on the ships, one uncle was a captain. I can still remember my excitement of going with my father on. one of his trips across the lake. Thanks again. By the way, the ships docked on the Elberta side of the bay, not the Frankfort side.
Thank you for such an interesting piece of history! I was very absorbed in it, I didn't want it to end!
Thank you! That was a great lecture!
I only wish there were more like this, seriously made and presented in a grownup style.
Great job!
That was a crazy one! Great evidence guys! Hopefully the family has some peace finally.
The wife and I sailed the Badger last summer. What a great adventure! Highly recommend for everyone!
Great presentation. I really enjoyed it. Thanks.
Great Presentation!!!
I've always had an interest in Railroad Car Ferries and Car Floats. I remember as a child seeing them in Baltimore Harbor. In fact, as an adult, I bought a house in the Canton Neighborhood, in Southeast Baltimore one block above the harbor in 1976, and there were two car float Gantry's near my house, one was only two blocks away, that belonged to the Pennsylvania Railroad. The yard along with all the infrastructure of the loading ramp was still intact. Some time in late 1980’s the yard was torn up and turned into a City Waterfront Park and Korean War Memorial. The steel superstructure that raised and lowered the loading ramp is still there today.
The second Car Float Ramp was maybe a quarter mile away in the Fells Point Neighborhood, also in Southeast Baltimore, and was owned by the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad, if I’m not mistaken some of that infrastructure may still be in place. This ramp is next to a very large warehouse that belonged the B&O, but has been converted into living space and offices.
Barry P. Broyles
Thanks! This is brilliant!
Thanks for the content
Outstanding !
Thanks for a very informative presentation.
When will Jeff be giving another lecture? I am all the way in South Haven, but I travel the great lakes area a lot playing music and I come to Alpena a lot! Would love to catch one of these and maybe for once make small talk with someone who shares my interests of the maritime history on these glorious lakes!
Thanks.
On my ride at midnight, a restored GM Futureliner was loaded. Met the group that restored it. Wild watching a multi million dollar bus loaded.
Another carferry that sank was the Pere Marquette 3, which sank in the ice off Ludington in 1920. My dad was then 8 years old and skipped school to walk out on the ice to watch it sink. I have a photo of the sinking ship, and on the back of the photo my dad wrote about his adventure, and the fact that his mother spanked him when she found out. The ship was later raised and towed away to be scrapped. I myself worked summers for the Chesapeake and Ohio carferries in the 1960s. The fleet had 7 ships in those days, and I have sailed on every one of them.
The Pere Marquette 3 was not a carferry, she was a break-bulk steamer, more like a package freighter. She was not built to handle rail cars.
Coal fired! Steam! Wow!🤩she is Hugh!
That was an awesome presentation! I had no idea the Pere-Marquette 18 was found. What a credit to the diligence of shipwreck hunters! As for ships with open sterns, at least one major cruise ship has an open stern, with the space used for various means of entertainment. Given the ship is far larger and higher than any of those presented here, do you believe there is any risk in having such a design again? Again, great job!
Excellent presentation. It should be noted that the Marquette and Bessemer Navigation Company, in keeping with Jeff's statement that all the ferries were operated by railroad companies, was a joint venture of the Pere Marquette and the Bessemer and Lake Erie Railroads, hence the company's name.
The worst part of the sinking of the Milwaukee wasn't that Grand Trunk didn't install a radio, when they purchased it they actually removed the radio it was built with.
I rode on a train ferry twice. Once coming from Germany to Copenhagen Denmark and back to Germany. It was a fun trip each way in 1980.
There was a fairly large open-deck carferry on Lake Superior, the Incan Superior. She could carry 32 rail cars and sailed from Superior to Thunder Bay from 1974-1992. She survives in the Vancouver area though she no longer carries rail cars.
Association of lift I like your utube videos are awesome
Muskegon had 2 GT Boats, and had tracks running to them. We explored them many times growing up. They we in horrible condition. Now the Milwaukee Clipper is docked there. Old Great Lakes passenger ship.
back in the late 70’s-early 80’s we used to go out fishing off of Kewaune Wisconsin and there were three ferries that ran out of that port the Viking the City Of Milwaukee and the Badger and the Badger and the Viking had bow thrusters and the city of Milwaukee had to use its anchor to back around the corner into the dock we actually saw it drop anchor to late one time and it bumped into the highway bridge in town and also one morning we were fishing in the fog and it started to clear up and all of the sudden one of our other boats fishing with us hollered over the cb radio and asked if I had a eye on that big one and I turned and looked behind us and the Badger was so close behind us I couldn’t see the top of the ship and she never blew the horn luckily I punched the throttle and got out of the way but I always wondered why they never blew the horn in the fog and their radar should have showed me in their path
The Badger doesn't have a bow thruster. Just FYI.
Very interesting and I myself have been on 2 train ferries where they took my passenger trains on a ferry and that was in Europe on the overnight train from Brussels to Copenhagen and it went on a ferry from Putgarten, Germany to Roby, Denmark.And another from Stockholm, Sweden to Copenhagen, Denmark too.When I went to New Zealand I saw a train ferry but it was only for freight between Wellington and Picton linking the North and South Island and you could see them putting the wagons on it.There's still a passenger one it Italy linking the mainland with Scilly. Must be a few others still going around the world.
There are still car ferries running on the Baltic Sea in Europe.
A small historic one with open Deck for narrow gauge is in Restauration for the German island of Rügen.
Like the German railcars transporting 'heavy water', at some fjoird, sabotaged by the Allie's, during WWll.
Were the railroad cars loaded, sometimes loaded or always empty?
There is another car ferry not mentioned. Mackinaw City to St. Ignace, the icebreaker, paddle-wheeled CHIEF WAWATAM. Operated 1911 to 1984.
Captain Mcleod was the first captain on the L.R. Doty and he went down with the Marquette & Bessimer no. 2. The LAST captain of the L.R. Doty, before it was scrapped... Ernest Mcsorley. The Doty was both captains first job as a captain. Kind of a crazy fact.
Check out the story of the Baikal. The car ferry built for the Trans Siberian Railroad. Built in England, then taken apart and shipped by rail to Russia's lake Baikal. Then proved useless for the 9 foot thick ice. Great story.
I got curious and looked into it thanks to your comment.
It wasn't a car ferry, but rather an "ice-breaking train ferry" - and it indeed had a fascinating story. I mean, look at this tub... Compared to a newer Baikal heavy-duty ferry like "Angara" (which set sail two years later in 1900 and is still operational today, making it one of the oldest ferries in existence today), this ship barely looks like a ship, but it fits 800 tons of cargo, it does in fact break ice, and it's spent two decades in service - and only left service when the the Bolsheviks put machine-guns and cannons on it and Czech Legion had to use field artillery to sink it.
The Lake Baikal ferry was a copy of naval architect based in Detroit. A group of Armstrong Whitworth engineers visited Kirby and bought the plans and took them to Tyneside. I got this from a Newcastle museum. It was built for ice breaking. It was the St Marie which had a bow propeller which was invented in Mackinaw. Ice is up to 20 feet on the Great Lakes ( Lake Superior, northern Lakes Michigan and Huron. The St Marie was a successful ice breaker for 50 years. 9 foot ice was common in the Lakes and it’s incredible to say the Lake Baikal ferry could not handle 9 feet thick. Yes, the Bolshevik’s wrecked her.
@@robertdshannon5155 Safe to assume the bow propeller was for breaking the ice ?
The Baikal had no such provision. It was built with the intention of it breaking thru the ice with it's sheer weight. But it would not. The Developers were told that the ice was 3 feet thick not 9. The Ivan's tried explosives and fire to no avail so the entire ferry transport idea was abandoned and the hardest section of the line was built around the lake instead.
The spartin is still afloat in Ludington
Just to be accurate, the Badger is not the only car ferry still operating on Lake Michigan. There is also The Lake Michigan Express,but it is a modern high speed ferry, and I actually prefer the old and slow Badger!
Amaan Brother on feeling like somebody.7/26/2022. from Michigan USA
I used to take my Semi onto the Badger when I had the opportunity. It cost me roughly $40.00 more than going around and it was well worth it.
No hatches, no gates ! Yikes!😳
Grand Trunk Railroad hmmm Grand Funk Railroad, wonder where they got their name?
Meat cleaver would be used for breaking ice!
Good point
Thank Vulcan the Badger lives!!
What about the theory of it being part of the point, west of port Stanley, directly across the lake from Cleveland? The gentleman says it laid over making the turn to head to Cleveland, from ice. Says you can see on google maps, the coal leaking out now.
-5 Fahrenheit with 75mph winds... ice. Meat cleaver would be handy to break ice.
Kind of BS that they named the captain and crew somewhat responsible for trying too hard to save the pere marquette 18 when you know if they hadn't tried that hard, they would have likely blamed them for that.
"Try to save your ship if you are taking on water, but dont try too hard." -Government Official
Shows how cheaply workers lives were valued.
Something the presenter failed to mention is the Manistique Marquette and Northern No.1/Milwaukee was an almost identical sister of the Pere Marquette 18. He also neglected to mention other car ferry ports of Interrest on Lake Michigan like Manistique and briefly Northport and Gladstone, as well as Muskegon. He utterly neglected to mention the Lake Ontario Car Ferry company. All that esoterica could have added minutiae that would have made the presentation more interesting.
Bad “Choices” Bob.
Facts regarding M&B2 are inaccurate. Research before presenting please.
The 'Milwaukee' didn't possess, a radio (even wireless, as I assume they're were more, than that), by 1929🙄??? See where being CHEAP, gets you?? And human beings lives at stake, being used as collateral😔…………
Something don't make sense, about the Milwaukees' sinking. If a railroad car crashed through the gates, the car would sink instantly. The Milwaukee would take time to sink, drifting all the time. It wouldn't land of top, of them. Sounds like the remaining cars, left the ship, as it was sinking, and Milwaukee landed on top of THEM, instead.
𝐩𝓻Ỗ𝓂Ø𝓈Ｍ
Great video..shame on your audience's enthusiasm
Hopefully the Badger will be shut down, or refitted for cleaner fuel. She doesn't burn clean, and has an exemption from EPA regulations.
Obtaining an exemption is an admission that she doesn't meet clean air standards.
Coal fired. I can almost smell the liberal tears.