From Trainorders.com posted by ChuChuBob
"Information from the “Boatnerd.com” website, Information search page -----
First post -
The steamer hull Lansdowne located in Erie, Pa, has sunk. The railroad cars located on the stern deck are partially above water. Evidently she is resting on the bottom where moored.
Reply -
A disappointing fate of a historic vessel on which the skytops rest. The paddle-wheeled steamer, the Lansdowne, was built as a railroad car ferry in 1884 at the Wyandotte shipyards. It is a unique ship with quite a bit of history itself. At 312 feet, it was the longest ship on the Great Lakes, carrying passenger trains across the Detroit River and at the time of its retirement in 1956, it was one of the oldest vessels still operating on the Lakes. In the 1980's, it inherited the skytops and a new, albeit short-lived life as a floating restaurant off downtown Detroit. Regretfully, all that remained of the ship is its hull and skeletal remains of its iron deckwork. Specialty Restaurants, home to several unique view restaurants, had hoped to restore the floating vessel and skytops as a fine restaurant. Unfortunately, initial construction revealed several obstacles that proved to be financially prohibitive.

Lets hope that they recover the Milwaukee Road observation cars!"
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The Milw Obs cars were pretty badly butchered when they were configured for use on the Landsdowne and it would probably be cheaper to build one from scratch than try to restore them.

Bob H

Hey everyone-
Sadly, this an all too common fate for the river ferries, as those old hulls, may of which are approaching somewhere between 90 - 100 years old (or much older in the Lansdowne's case) have been unmaintained and battered for ldecades now. This was about twenty years in coming, to be honest. The Huron, her last running mate, died a quicker death, thankfully. Even rhe last Pere Marquette heritage river ferries, the Pere Marquette #10 & Pere Marquette #12 (later St. Clair for CNNA) survived as tow barges into the 1990's, but the new CN Tunnel here between Sarnia and Port Huron killed them "right quick". The former Wabash/ N&W/ NS ferries survived a little later, and are now awaiting their fate (except for Manitowoc, now a pulp barge) at what is affectionely known as the "Frog Pond" in Toledo, not far from death themselves, and recently (in 2003) joined by the hulk of the #10.

And for those that are techinical, no, I don't call the Roanoke (former City of Flint #32), or the Pere Marquette #41 (former City of Midland #41, P.M. heritage ferries. That died the moment they both left Ludington to be cut into (shudder) unpowered barges.

I knew the end was truly near for Lansdowne when I saw that her rather unique air funnels (about twice the height of most typical curved air funnels) started going up for sale on ebay about a year ago. Anything that made her unique (which made it intact out of Detroit) inlcuding her steam engine, etc, is GONE --- the new owners, from what I could see, stripped her CLEAN (anything salvagable in the SkyTops included) when the realized how much money it would cost to bring here back, even cosmetically. if I had my drouthers, this would be solved with a firing line, without even the offer of a cigarette or a blindfold, but I get pretty peeved when it comes to stuff like this.......

Sorry, the skytops are toast ---- the cost of raising her, plus then separating their carcasses from the ship..... forget it, cost would kill you there alone. There is very little left to talk about there. When she was in Detroit, they cut about 1/3 - 2/3's of the sides facing inboard out of either car ---- and did a REALLY bad job doing it. I hate to say it --- but call in the scrapper, these cars are razors blades at this point.

"This is the way the world ends; not with a bang, but a whimper."

TJG

From the Library of Congress

"crossing the Detroit River in winter"
http://memory.loc.gov/pnp/det/4a10000/4 ... 15742r.jpg

That's funny to hear about this fate since I totally forgot about this boat. I remember when while still in Detroit as a restaurant it was revamped into a garish surfer-style dinning affair. As a kid at the time I thought that was "awesome"

Confirm on the story - it was on the Erie TV news last night.

There's at least some discussion about towing it out into the lake and completely sinking it as an underwater diving attraction, apparently with the car remnants on board.

The last I'd seen of it (this summer) the only really intact part of it was the steel framework on the observation end. The cars had been 'filleted' for lack of a better term; cut in the center and half removed, and grafted back on to some kind of structure in the middle.

I think it 'could' have been used as an interior interpretive display for a Milwaukee Road museum, like they have proposed for Cle Elum, WA. I'd mentioned this to them last year but nobody seemed to react. They weren't salvageble as cars but I do think they were salvageable as museum display items.... sort of a railroad-style IMAX theatre room, where you could ride through the rockies??? Somebody? Anybody?? Last call, unless you have an air tank....

I thought the general consensus the last time we discussed these hulks here was that the deterioration and modifications were so severe that replicating the cars from scratch would be more cost-effective and sane.

Not that I would preclude, say, the Friends of the 261 from doing a truck or parts salvage for spares for their car, but the ruins are so far from Milwaukee Road turf that the combination of salvage, transport, and restoration pretty much precludes anyone other than Bill Gates from seriously pursuing rescue of these hulks. It's very sad; I for one would love to see another such car salvaged for PV service or display. But not at the "cost" of monies that could better benefit, say, 261..........

UER.ca had some photos in the Members only database before and after the sinking. The cars are shells, metal only, no glass. As suspected, the front 2/3 of the metal on one side of each car is missing, so one whole car could be made, with a single truck observation section left over. It's hard to see what's missing at the front ends, but the rear trucks are under the cars.
Mark, the photographer gave this link to be plugged:
http://www.deltablack.com

Mark provided direct links to some of his photos:
http://deltablack.d3vc0n.com/bowhull.jpg
http://deltablack.d3vc0n.com/lans1.jpg
http://deltablack.d3vc0n.com/lans2.jpg
http://deltablack.d3vc0n.com/lans3.jpg
http://deltablack.d3vc0n.com/lans4.jpg
http://deltablack.d3vc0n.com/lans5.jpg
http://deltablack.d3vc0n.com/lans6.jpg
He also reported signs that the boat is being refloated.

Contrary to an earlier posting the picture below is clearly of one of her main engines still intact. I thought I had read elsewhere that it is still there:

http://deltablack.d3vc0n.com/lans4.jpg

-James Hefner
Hebrews 10:20a

Surviving World Steam Project