Lehigh Valley Barge #79 has been restore in New York and is used as a floating arts center. They are in the middle of a major project to protect her from wood eating worms. They have restored her nicely and have a few good photos on their website.

It seems that she is not really touted as a railroad artifact. I was wondering how many other railroad items have been restored but are not advertised or known as railroad artifacts. Does anyone know of any?

Tom Gears
Wilmington, DE

Waterfront Museum
tgears1@home.com

The River Cafe in Brooklyn under the Brooklyn Bridge is an ex-PRR Steel lighter.

Very fancy restaurant.

v-scarpitti@worldnet.att.net

Yet another: check out the two obs cars
hope the pix works

Developer unveils plan for Lansdowne restaurant in Erie
02/14
A California development company says it still wants to convert the former car ferry Lansdowne into a floating restaurant in Erie.

Two officials from Specialty Restaurants Corp. in Anaheim, Calif., recently unveiled plans to the Erie City Council. The company's $5 million plan calls for it to fully renovate the 324-foot Lansdowne and make improvements to Erie's Sassafras Street.

The floating restaurant, with 1,200 seats, would be permanently moored at the dock. It would employ more than 100 people and include a main dining room, lower deck lounge and outside patio with room for more than 300 people. Plans call for the restaurant in spring 2003.

Several city councilors said they were concerned about a stalled Buffalo project involving Specialty Restaurants Corp., but indicated they would consider whether to approve the restaurant plan at their next council meeting.

The Lansdowne was launched in 1884 and operated on the Detroit River for the Grand Trunk Railway until the mid-1970s. After retirement it was converted to a floating restaurant, complete with a pair of observation cars, and permanently docked at Detroit. The restaurant failed, and the barge has since been moved to several ports as unsuccessful efforts were made to reopen it.

Lansdowne docked in Erie Jeff Thoreson

Reported by: Steve Nelson




lamontdc@adelphia.net

Landsdowne is referred to here as a car ferry and as a barge. I seem to detect sidewheels and funnels in the picture which would indicate engines and boilers. Is she a barge or is she powered? Is one criteria for being a barge not being powered? Somewhat confused about maritime terminology.

Dave

irondave@bellsouth.net

Hard to tell the current status. Not uncommon however to convert a powered vessel to a barge. Would be neat to see a coupla triple expansion steam engines at work tho'.


lamontdc@adelphia.net

> Landsdowne is referred to here as a car
> ferry and as a barge. I seem to detect
> sidewheels and funnels in the picture which
> would indicate engines and boilers. Is she a
> barge or is she powered? Is one criteria for
> being a barge not being powered? Somewhat
> confused about maritime terminology.

> Dave

As I understand it, she was rendered incapable of sailing under her own power during her conversion to a restaurant. For that reason, she'd be considered a barge.

It was not quite as drastic as the conversion of the S.S. City of Midland 41 into the barge Pere Marquette 41, but similar in the general idea.

-fm

The steam tug HERCULES was built in camden NJ in 1907. She is an oceangoing steam tug one of only two steam powered tugs in the USA. We have chosed to display her as she was during her early deep water years.

However, her second career was a harbor tug moving barge loads of freight cars back and forth on San Francisco Bay. There is one large sign telling this story. Ted

ted_miles@NPS.gov

She operated as a barge for the last few years that she was in service, with her machinery intact but the paddlewheels (or at least the paddle buckets) removed. One of her engines was also removed and scrapped when she was converted to a restaurant, but the other is still there, or so I'm told. David Plowden had some good pics of her in service under her own power in "Farewell to Steam".

Sevaral other Detroit River steam car floats are still around as well. If I remember correctly, three of them are laid up in Toledo, and there's another one in Port Huron. They were all propeller steamers before finishing their careers as barges, but as far as I know they all still have their engines intact.

> Landsdowne is referred to here as a car
> ferry and as a barge. I seem to detect
> sidewheels and funnels in the picture which
> would indicate engines and boilers. Is she a
> barge or is she powered? Is one criteria for
> being a barge not being powered? Somewhat
> confused about maritime terminology.

> Dave


rjenkins@railfan.net

> Yet another: check out the two obs cars
> hope the pix works

> Looks to me like one of the observation cars is an ex hiawatha tail car, Betcha Mark D. would like that one in his back yard.

b.hume@rogers.com

If I remember right correctly both the obs cars are ex-Milwaukee Road skytops.

Cvsrkahuna@aol.com

> Sevaral other Detroit River steam car floats
> are still around as well. If I remember
> correctly, three of them are laid up in
> Toledo, and there's another one in Port
> Huron. They were all propeller steamers
> before finishing their careers as barges,
> but as far as I know they all still have
> their engines intact.

Richard,

Do you have additional information on them, and perhaps photographs? I would to have it for my "Surviving World Steamship" CD-ROM.

This is great, with the discoveries never end?

-James Hefner
Hebrews 10:20a

Surviving World Steamships
james1@pernet.net

NYC Tugboat #16 was rescued from Whitte's scrapyard, and is on display at Shaw's Restaurant, Buzzards Bay, MA. It seems like I have seen a picture of another ex-NYC steam tug intact on the net somewhere, but I can' remember where.

It seems Whitte's yard was cleaned out sometime in the 1990s; the vast expanse of steamboats including the steam "New Bedford" are gone now. But there are two or three boats remaining, and one might be a RR tug.

Across the pond, the steam yacht "Gondola" was built for the Furness Railway in 1859. After laying at the bottom of the lake for some time, the hull was raised, a new steam plant built by Locomotion Enterprises (who also built several steam locomotive replicas in the UK), a new superstructure by Vickers, and is back at work hauling tourists around Coniston Waters. The locomotive "Chloe" from the same railway, built by Sharp Stewart in 1863, is also operational at the Lakeside & Haverthwaite Railway.

-James Hefner
Hebrews 10:20a

> The steam tug HERCULES was built in camden
> NJ in 1907. She is an oceangoing steam tug
> one of only two steam powered tugs in the
> USA. We have chosed to display her as she
> was during her early deep water years.

> However, her second career was a harbor tug
> moving barge loads of freight cars back and
> forth on San Francisco Bay. There is one
> large sign telling this story. Ted


Surviving World Steamships
james1@pernet.net

* The SP car ferry "Eureka" at the San Francisco Maritime National Historical Park, Hyde Street Pier, San Francisco, CA.

* The C&O ferries "Badger" and "Spartan" at Ludington, MI.

* GTRR "City of Milwaukee" in Manistee, MI.

* The remains of at least three WP&Y stern wheel steamers along the Yukon river.

* The granddaddy of them all, the steamship "Great Britian", built for Brunell's GWR in 1843, first to cross the Atlantic without running out of coal, used as a hulk in Argentina before being brought back to England where it is slowing being restored. Other RR operated paddle steamers can be found in the UK as well.

* Finally the sad remains of J.P. Morgan's steam Yacht "Navette", derelect in the Caloosahatchee River, La Bell, FL.

-James Hefner
Hebrews 10:20a

Surviving World Steamships
james1@pernet.net

> Yet another: check out the two obs cars
> hope the pix works

While looking for more information on the ferry, I found out the following about the obs cars:

1. 14 "Arrow Creek"(11/48) - CN 1901 "Malpeque"
2. 16 "Gold Creek"(12/48) - CN 1903 "Trinity"

-James Hefner
Hebrews 10:20a

Surviving World Steamships
james1@pernet.net

I think one of the C&O ferries is also in Erie, Pa. At least it was last year.

v-scarpitti@worldnet.att.net