Unpowered barge with railroad tracks mounted on its deck
A railroad car float in the
Upper New York Bay , 1919. A
tugboat (
towboat ) stack is visible behind the middle car.
1912 PRR map showing the Greenville Terminal and its car float operations, also the current crossing
A railroad car float or rail barge is a specialised form of
lighter
[1] with
railway tracks mounted on its deck used to move
rolling stock across water obstacles, or to locations they could not otherwise go. An unpowered
barge , it is towed by a
tugboat or pushed by a
towboat .
This is distinguished from a
train ferry , which is self-powered.
Historical operations
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
Class 1 railroads terminals on the west bank of
Hudson River in
Hudson County, New Jersey and the numerous online and offline terminals located in
Brooklyn ,
Queens ,
Staten Island ,
the Bronx , and
Manhattan .
[5]
[6] Class 1 railroads in the
New York Harbor area providing car float services were:
As well as the offline
terminal railroads :
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
barges , towed by 150
tugboats between
New Jersey and
New York City .
Abandoned
float bridges are preserved as part of this history at:
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
Bay Coast Railroad formerly operated a 2-barge car float connecting
Virginia 's
Eastern Shore with the city of
Norfolk, Virginia across the
Chesapeake Bay .
U.S. Midwest
An Erie tugboat and barge on the Chicago River in 1917
Between 1912 and 1936, the Erie Railroad operated a car float service on the
Chicago River in
Chicago, Illinois .
[33]
U.S. West Coast
Canada
Woodfibre, British Columbia
Car float in Howe Sound
Prince Rupert, British Columbia –
Whittier, Alaska (
Aquatrain , Service ended in April 2021.
[34] )
Various inland lakes of
British Columbia (
Okanagan [
citation needed ] ,
Arrow [
citation needed ] ,
Kootenay )[
citation needed ] (
Canadian National Railway and
CPR )
Port Maitland, Ontario –
Erie, Pennsylvania (
TH&B Navigation Company )
Port Burwell, Ontario –
Ashtabula, Ohio (CN)
Cobourg, Ontario –
Rochester, New York (
Ontario Car Ferry Company )
Sarnia, Ontario –
Port Huron, Michigan – rail-barge – (CN, until the opening of the
Paul Tellier Tunnel ). The
rail ferries
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.
[35]
Windsor, Ontario –
Detroit, Michigan (
Grand Trunk , CN, CPR,
Michigan Central ,
Wabash , until the 1980s)[
citation needed ]
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
[36]
[37]
Existing operations
Alaska
The
Alaska Railroad provides the
Alaska Rail Marine rail barge service from downtown Seattle to
Whittier on the central
Alaskan mainland.
[38] ', CN Rail provided the
Aquatrain rail barge service from
Prince Rupert, British Columbia to Whittier.
[39] Service ended in April 2021.
[34]
New York / New Jersey
The car float docks at
Bay Ridge ,
Brooklyn ,
New York .
The only remaining car float service in operation in the
Port of New York and New Jersey is operated by
New York New Jersey Rail . This company, operated by the bi-state government agency
Port Authority of New York & New Jersey is the successor to the New York Cross Harbor Railroad. Car float service operates between 65th Street / Bay Ridge Yard in
Brooklyn and
Greenville Yard in
Jersey City, New Jersey .
[40] The service exists because
freight cars do not run in the
East River Tunnels nor the
North River Tunnels (under the
Hudson River ), in part due to inadequate
tunnel clearances of the
New York Tunnel Extension .
See also
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.
^ Wolmar, Christian (2012). Engines of War . London: Atlantic Books. p. 49.
ISBN
9781848871731 .
^
a
b Harwood, Herbert H. Jr. (1979). Impossible Challenge: The Baltimore & Ohio Railroad in Maryland . Baltimore, MD: Barnard, Roberts.
ISBN
0-934118-17-5 .
^ Cudahy, Brian J. (2006).
Box Boats: How Container Ships Changed the World . New York, NY: Fordham University Press. pp.
45–47 .
ISBN
0-8232-2568-2 .
^ Flagg, Thomas R. (2000). New York Harbor Railroads in Color, Volume 1 . Scotch Plains, NJ: Morning Sun Books.
ISBN
1-58248-082-6 .
^ Flagg, Thomas R. (2002). New York Harbor Railroads in Color, Volume 2 . Scotch Plains, NJ: Morning Sun Books.
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. 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