Car float
A railroad car float or rail barge is a specialised form of
This is distinguished from a train ferry, which is self-powered.
Historical operations
This section needs additional citations for verification. (February 2021) |
U.S. East Coast
During the Civil War, Union general Herman Haupt, a civil engineer, used huge barges fitted with tracks to enable military trains to cross the Rappahannock River in support of the Army of the Potomac.[2]
Beginning in the 1830s, the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad (B&O) operated a car float across the Potomac River, just south of Washington, D.C., between Shepherds Landing on the east shore, and Alexandria, Virginia on the west. The ferry operation ended in 1906.[3] The B&O operated a car float across the Baltimore Inner Harbor until the mid-1890s. It connected trains from Philadelphia to Washington, D.C., and points to the west. The operation ended after the opening of the Baltimore Belt Line in 1895.[3]
The Port of New York and New Jersey had many car float operations, which lost ground to the post-World War II expansion of trucking, but held out until the rise of containerization in the 1970s.[4]
These car floats operated between the
- Baltimore and Ohio Railroad[7][8]
- Bay Coast Railroad
- Central Railroad of New Jersey[9][10]
- Delaware, Lackawanna and Western Railroad[11][12]
- Lehigh Valley Railroad[15][16]
- Long Island Rail Road[17][18]
- New York Central Railroad[19][20]
- New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad[21][22]
- Pennsylvania Railroad[23][24]
- Reading Railroad[25]
As well as the offline terminal railroads:
- Brooklyn Eastern District Terminal[26]
- Brooklyn Army Terminal
- Hoboken Manufacturers Railroad[29]
- Jay Street Connecting Railroad[30]
- New York Dock Railway[31][32]
- Pouch Terminal[33]
- East Jersey Railroad and Terminal Co.[33]
Car float service was also provided to many pier stations and waterfront warehouse facilities (that did not engage in car floating service directly) by the above-mentioned railroads.
At their peak, the railroads had 3,400 employees operating small fleets totalling 323 car floats, plus 1,094 other
Abandoned float bridges are preserved as part of this history at:
- Gantry Plaza State Park in Long Island City, Queens; (former Long Island Railroad),
- West 26th Street float bridge (former Baltimore & Ohio) and the only surviving wood Howe truss float bridge in New York Harbor
- 69th Street Transfer Bridge(former New York Central)
Several other abandoned but unrestored float bridges exist in other locations around New York Harbor. A complete list is available at Surviving Float Bridges of New York Harbor
The
U.S. Midwest
Between 1912 and 1936, the Erie Railroad operated a car float service on the Chicago River in Chicago, Illinois.[34]
U.S. West Coast
- Santa Fe Railroad: San Francisco
- Southern Pacific Railroad: (?)
- Union Pacific Railroad: (?)
- Western Pacific Railroad: San Francisco
- Chicago, Milwaukee, St. Paul and Pacific Railroad: Seattle; Tacoma, Washington; Bellingham, Washington; Port Townsend, Washington
- Seattle and North Coast Railroad: Seattle; Port Townsend, Washington
Canada
- Prince Rupert, British Columbia – Whittier, Alaska (Aquatrain, Service ended in April 2021.[35])
- Various inland lakes of British Columbia (Okanagan[citation needed], Arrow[citation needed], Kootenay)[citation needed] (Canadian National Railway and CPR)
- TH&B Navigation Company)
- Port Burwell, Ontario – Ashtabula, Ohio (CN)
- Cobourg, Ontario – Rochester, New York (Ontario Car Ferry Company)
- Pere Marquette 12 and Pere Marquette 10 were converted to barges (PM 10 in 1974, PM 12 in the 1980s) and used until 1995 to carry dangerous cargoes and oversize cars.[36]
- ]
- BC Rail. until 1955 railcars were barged from North Vancouver to Squamish.
- A large number of isolated BC pulp mills had chemicals and freight moved by car floats.
- In the Victoria Harbour to Ogden Point[37][38]
Existing operations
Alaska
The Alaska Railroad provides the Alaska Rail Marine rail barge service from downtown Seattle to Whittier on the central Alaskan mainland.[39]', CN Rail provided the Aquatrain rail barge service from Prince Rupert, British Columbia to Whittier.[40] Service ended in April 2021.[35]
New York / New Jersey
The only remaining car float service in operation in the
See also
- Bay Ridge Branch
- Cross-Harbor Rail Tunnel (proposed)
- Ferry slip (includes examples of rail ferry and barge slips)
- Linkspan
- New York tugboats
- Santa Fe Dock and Channel Company
References
- ^ Lederer, Eugene H. (1945). Port Terminal Operation: Port Terminal Management, Stevedoring, Stowage, Lighterage and Harbor Boats. New York, NY: Cornell Maritime Press. pp. 291–292.
- ISBN 9781848871731.
- ^ ISBN 0-934118-17-5.
- ISBN 0-8232-2568-2.
- ISBN 1-58248-082-6.
- ISBN 1-58248-048-6.
- ^ Flagg, 2000, pp. 16–23.
- ^ Flagg, 2002, pp. 26–29.
- ^ Flagg, 2000, pp. 24–33.
- ^ Flagg, 2002, pp. 38–39.
- ^ Flagg, 2000, pp. 34–45.
- ^ Flagg, 2002, pp. 40–51.
- ^ Flagg, 2000, pp. 46–55.
- ^ Flagg, 2002, pp. 52–57.
- ^ Flagg, 2000, pp. 56–61.
- ^ Flagg, 2002, pp. 58–63.
- ^ Flagg, 2000, pp. 62–65.
- ^ Flagg, 2002, pp. 64–67.
- ^ Flagg, 2000, pp. 66–83.
- ^ Flagg, 2002, pp. 68–93.
- ^ Flagg, 2000, pp. 84–91.
- ^ Flagg, 2002, pp. 94–97.
- ^ Flagg, 2000, pp. 92–101.
- ^ Flagg, 2002, pp. 98–109.
- ^ Flagg, 2002, pp. 30–37.
- ^ Flagg, 2002, pp. 110–116.
- ^ Flagg, 2000, pp. 118–125.
- ^ Flagg, 2002, pp. 120–127.
- ^ Flagg, 2000, pp. 126–127.
- ^ Flagg, 2002, p. 118.
- ^ Flagg, 2000, pp. 110–117.
- ^ Flagg, 2002, p. 119.
- ^ a b Flagg, 2002, p. 117.
- ^ Sennstrom, Bernard H. (1992). "Erie Railroad's Chicago River Service". The Diamond. 7 (1): 4–10.
- ^ a b "The Last AquaTrain". 2021.
- ^ The Pere Marquette Marine Fleet, Pere Marquette Historical Society, 10-MAY-2011, accessed July 16, 2012
- ^ "car float". Archived from the original on 2021-04-26. Retrieved 2021-04-26.
- ^ Greg George
- ^ Alaska Rail Marine[dead link] Archived December 21, 2013, at the Wayback Machine
- ^ "Aqua train". Archived from the original on 2018-09-30. Retrieved 2011-03-05.
- ^ "Route Map". New York New Jersey Rail, LLC. Retrieved 2017-06-03.
External links
- Railroad ferry, Hudson River, New York, Andreas Feininger, 1940. Still Photograph Archive, George Eastman House, Rochester, NY.
- NYNJ Rail – official site
- Industrial & Offline Terminal Railroads of Brooklyn, Queens, Staten Island, Bronx & Manhattan