Towns and Nature: Elberta, MI: Ann Arbor Ferry Dock and ARTHUR K. ATKINSON/ANN ARBOR #6 Ferry

(Satellite)

Every source uses the town Frankfort, MI; but the dock is actually in Elberta, MI. The 2005 SPV Map indicates that there was ferry service to Manistique, MI; Menominee, MI; Kewaunee, WI; and Manitowoc, WI.

John Ashley of the Ann Arbor Railroad had an idea. Instead of transferring cargo from railcar to lake boat to railcar, he would ship loaded freight cars across Lake Michigan. On November 27, 1892, twenty-two cars were loaded at Kewaunee, Wisconsin, and ferried across the Lake to Frankfort, Michigan. This was the start of cross-lake railroad carferry service. [WMHS]

Mike Harlan shared
From the Menominee fb group.

Association for Great Lakes Maritime History posted

The railroad car ferry Ann Arbor No. [5] at dock in Frankfort, Mich. (Image Source: University of Wisconsin Madison Libraries Digital Collection – The Great Lakes Maritime History Project).

According to at least one source, and a comparison with other historical images, it appears that this is the Ann Arbor dock at Elberta, Mich not Frankfort which is nearby.

The image is from a postcard that is part of the collection of the Jim Dan Hill Library at the University of Wisconsin Superior. Photographer and date information is not included in collection notes, although it does state the vessel has a “modernized wheelhouse and stack.”

[The description continues with more information about #5.]

Tim Hansen: While the boat docks and railyard were physically located in Elberta the Ann Arbor Railroad's schedules and literature typically referred to the terminal as Frankfort or Frankfort, Elberta Boat Landing. I suspect that the Frankfort name usage may have originated in that Elberta was originally referred to as South Frankfort. The photograph predates the 1948 rebuild of the No. 5 in which she received new deck cabins and pilot house.

Marty Bernard posted
Frankfort, MI Ferry Loading Ramp in 1994. Not TOFC but BOFC. Karl Miller photo
Randy Alan: Technically Elberta.
Drew Black: Lifeboat on the carfloat idler car?
Michael Moran: Drew Black sure looks like it.
Ralph Nenn: I will have to verify the date but I believe this boat was shipped to Wisconsin for restoration an later displayed at a Coast Guard station. Sure looks like a life boat off a old ferry that was donated about that time frame.

Clare Union Railroad Depot posted

IT’S BEEN SAID THAT A PICTURE IS WORTH A THOUSAND WORDS…AND THIS ONE IS NO EXCEPTION

Article by Robert Warrick. Undated, uncredited photo courtesy of the Ann Arbor Museum Room, Durand, Michigan

The specific date is unknown, but by evaluating the photo, this photo of the Ann Arbor Railroad Company’s Boat Landing of three of the rail line’s fleet in port is most likely from the 1930’s.

At top center, Ann Arbor No.4 is tied up across the harbor near the Coast Guard Station. The Coast Guard had long wished to build a new station on the site of the Ann Arbor’s Royal Frontenac Hotel which had lain vacant since a 1912 fire destroyed the magnificent structure. The Ann Arbor finally deeded the land to the Coast Guard in January 1929, and the new facility seen here was built shortly thereafter.

To the left center is Ann Arbor No.6, being switched by one of the railroad’s hard working 2-8-0 2170 Locomotives. By this era, the powerful locomotive, one of 9 built by the American Locomotive Company in 1908, was relegated to yard switching duty and local freight work. Note the three idler cars being used by the switching crew to keep 376,300 pounds of locomotive a distance away from the car ferry slip.

Finally, to the far right lies AA No.5, known by her crews as “The Bull of the Woods” (because of her ability to break ice with her powerful engines) as she awaits a switch crew.

In the foreground of the photograph one can see the yard trackage at Boat Landing. Nearly a dozen ice cooled “reefers” are loaded with perishables to be shipped to the east coast on the next trains out. Several boxcars appear to be auto service cars from the Ann Arbor and its parent company Wabash ready to head west to Wisconsin. Even a couple Maintenance of Way cars assigned to the Bridge and Building Department can be seen to the right. The B&B department was tasked with keeping the busy ferry slips in top condition.

(Not quite a thousand words…but you get the picture, no?)

Robert Warrick shared

Greg Mross posted
Ann Arbor No. 7 is primed and awaiting new paint at the Fraser Shipyard in Superior in November of 1964. She would re-emerge as the Viking after a major re-fit. I believe the crane is dropping one of the diesel engines into the engine room as part of the re-powering. John Ingles Kodachrome from my collection.

Peter Carr posted, looking towards the northwest

It appears the town as preserved the memory of the AA roundhouse in a park:

Satellite

Bruce Mcpherson commented on John's post
very cool..here's the remains in Frankfort, MI another big car ferry slip
John Campbell Bruce Mcpherson Thanks for sharing, Bruce! Not too many of these structures remain. Elberta slips are gone. I think Manistique slip is still there. The GT Milwaukee and GT Muskegon slips are in shambles, but I think still stand. Kewaunee slips long gone.

Bruce Mcpherson commented on John's post

Paul Erspamer posted eleven photos with the comment:

Ann Arbor No. 5, built in Toledo & launched Nov. 1910, was huge: 360-ft. with a capacity of 30 railroad cars on four tracks in her car deck. At the time, AA #5 was largest carferry on the Grt. Lakes, & also the first ever launched with a sea gate [A safety device designed to keep water from flooding from the car deck at the stern, deemed necessary after 1909 Lk. Erie loss of MARQUETTE & BESSEMER No. 2 & 1910 loss of PERE MARQUETTE 18 off Sheboygan, Wis.].
AA #5 had two triple-expansion steam engines & steam from 4 scotch boilers from Marine Boiler Works of Toledo, driving 3000 horsepower.
AA #5 worked hard until Ann Arbor Railroad, [along with sister railroads operating cross-lake ferries, like Grand Trunk Western & Pere Marquette/C&O] encountered changing market conditions. AA #5 was converted to oil in 1964, then sold to Bulk Food Carriers of San Francisco in 1966. The ferry then swapped back and forth for years in the federal government’s ship exchange program. Ultimately, AA #5 was sold to Bultema Dredge & Dock Company in 1967. She was cut down & used as a temporary breakwall during construction of the Palisades Nuclear Power Plant at South Haven MI, 1967-69.
AA #5 was pounded during storms in winter 1969-70. Broken, Bultema cut the forward section of the fine carferry into pieces, hoisted them on a barge and hauled them to a scrap yard. But the aft 150 ft of Ann Arbor #5 was floatable and could be towed intact, requiring less time and effort. A tug pulled the damaged vessel out of position on the breakwall & towed her onto the Lake. With pumps, they were able to keep AA #5 afloat as they headed west, away from the power plant.
Soon after turning north towards Holland, MI, a leak developed in the watertight wall. Fighting to keep the last main pump operational, John Bultema II, 20 yrs. old & working for his father, lost his battle as the water rose.
Bultema was plucked off the sinking hulk by a crane just seconds before the barge rose up stern first and plunged to the bottom in 160 ft. The men aboard the tug watched & some claim they heard an impact as she hit bottom. Back at company HQ, Bultema Jr. reported the loss to his father, John Bultema, Sr., whose reaction was relief that no one had been injured or died.
The AA #5 wreck is in 163 ft. & her twin propellers & huge rudder are at about 125 feet. Divers must orient themselves to depth: As they swim forward from the stern, they descend rapidly & might quickly find themselves at 160 ft. michiganshipwrecks.org

[Several comments about the early sinkings and seagates.]
Robert Strauss

Actually, the No. 5 was never converted to oil, tho at that time Manitowoc had put together a proposal for such a conversion. She remained a coal burning hand bomber to the end.

Gerard Joseph posted
Railroad car ferry operations were once a mainstay in the Great Lakes State...not only in Detroit, but in Ludington with the C&O, the GTW at Muskegon, The AARR in Elberta, and Frankfort , and D&M/Soo Line @ Mackinaw City. and St Ignace. These two are again from My file collection - the AARR in Elberta MI. 1938, and @ Frankfort MI in 1960

1938 photo showing the AARR yard and railcar ferry's at Elberta MI
Steven Kelsch Ann Arbor No. 5. Ann Arbor No.3 and the Ann Arbor No.6. The No 4 had been sold to the State Of Michigan in 1937. Love the switch engine
Les Bagley You can still see three of them and even ride on one!
The Grand Trunk (and later Ann Arbor) Ferry, the SS City of Milwaukee of 1931, is today a museum ship, berthed in Manistee, Michigan. She is normally open for visitor tours between Spring and Fall, virus quarantines excepted.
The SS Badger, the last carferry built in 1952, still carries automobiles, trucks, and passengers (but no more train cars) across Lake Michigan every summer, between Ludington and Manitowoc, WI. The Badger is also the last coal-fired steamship operating on the Great Lakes. The virus has also limited her 2020 sailing schedule.
And finally, though she’s been laid up for years and cannibalized for parts, the Badger’s identical sister ship the SS Spartan is also tied up in Ludington. She can be easily seen from nearby, but she is not open to the public.
Deb Jabs I never knew they put rail cars on the boats.
Tom Groenevelt Car ferry referring to RR Cars, automobiles were actually secondary except in the straits up until the Bridge was built.
Les Bagley George Hilton, in his book “Great Lakes Carferries,” noted the differences between Great Lakes ferry types.
First, we all know that “passenger ferries” only carry passengers, and maybe a few bicycles.
Now it gets more complicated. In Europe, a ferry fitted with railroad tracks is called a “Train Ferry.” But in North America, a “train” is defined as “one or more locomotives which may or not be attached to cars.”
Since in normal practice, the Great Lakes ferries never regularly carried heavy locomotives, they couldn’t really be defined as “train ferries.” But they did carry railroad CARS, so they were defined in America as “Car Ferries,” or “carferries.”
But what about automobiles, which today we also call “cars?” They hadn’t even been imagined by most people when railroad “carferries” were developed. “Cars” were always things that traveled on rails. So today, since the term carferry was already being used, boats that ferry rubber-tired vehicles are designated “auto ferries” or “highway ferries.”
From time to time there have also been a few “truck ferries” which almost exclusively handle commercial truck traffic.
Of course, any of the vessels could be used for other purposes. Some railroads chartered their ferries as summer excursion steamers, and for years, the Ann Arbor, Pere Marquette/C&O/Chessie/MWT, and the Mackinaw Transportation Company boats often supplemented railroad business by carrying autos, trucks and passengers as needed, in addition to rail cars.
But the boats were generally described by the main purpose and design for which they were built or the main traffic they served.
So for example, the last carferry to sail, the SS Badger, might still be called a carferry by fans. That’s the primary reason she was built. But since the 1980s, she no longer has tracks on her deck, and her primary use is now to carry automobiles, trucks, and passengers, so she’s now technically an “auto ferry” or “Highway ferry,” since she’s also the seasonal continuation of US Highway 10 across Lake Michigan.

Les Bagley commented on Tom's comment
Actually, from 1923 to 1957, the State Highway Department ran auto ferries at the Straits. They used one of the railroad ferries, which doubled as icebreakers for winter service, before 1952, when they got an ice breaking auto ferry of their own.

Paul Erspamer commented on Gerard's post
[Ann Arbor #5]

Glen Rice posted
[I didn't see this accident recorded in the ship's timeline.]

Robert Warrick posted
Ann Arbor Railroad, That is the MV Viking
Empty cars return back to Ford Motor in Detroit.

Steve Vanden Bosch posted seven photos of Ann Arbor ferries #1 and #2

I never knew that Wabash used to own Ann Arbor.

Clare Union Railroad Depot posted

THE SS CITY OF GREEN BAY, FORMERLY KNOWN AS THE SS WABASH: article by Robert Warrick, uncredited photo from the Warrick files

On June 13, 1974, the Ann Arbor Railroad car ferry City of Green Bay was towed from Frankfort Harbor as dozens of onlookers sadly witnessed the first leg of her final voyage. Originally built as the SS Wabash, she carried an estimated million rail cars across Lake Michigan in her 45 years of service to the Ann Arbor Railroad

The French phrase “Bon Voyage”, an expression of good wishes when one leaves on a journey, hardly seems adequate here. Under tow, she traveled under tow nearly 7000 miles, crossing through Lakes Michigan, Huron, Erie, and Ontario before moving up the St. Lawrence Seaway and into the the Atlantic Ocean destined for her final port. This is her story.

When the Wabash Railroad officially took stock control of the Ann Arbor on November 2, 1925, the car ferry fleet had transported over 80,000 cars that year. To keep up with a growing demand for cross-lake service, Wabash ordered the largest car ferry yet built for the Great Lakes from the Craig Shipbuilding Company of Toledo. Launched in March 1927, the SS Wabash was soon completed and arrived in Frankfort three months later.

The last ferry built for the Ann Arbor, she could carry 32 freight cars. Owned by the Wabash Railroad but leased to the Ann Arbor, she sailed for 35 years before being sent to the Manitowoc Shipbuilding Company in Wisconsin for a minimal rebuild and update in 1962, including conversion from coal fired boilers to oil as well as raising her spar deck to accommodate taller freight cars. The Wabash now sported the Detroit Toledo & Ironton Compass Herald of her new owner on her streamline stack.

The following year, The Wabash returned to Manitowoc and was fitted with experimental propellers designed to increase her speed. She then emerged from the shipyard renamed the City of Green Bay in honor of the hometown of DT&I’s largest interchange partner. For eight years, she sailed as the railroad struggled to profit.

To cut costs, the Coast Guard certification on the Green Bay was allowed to expire in 1972. She was laid up in Frankfort Harbor until her official retirement in 1974. That same year, she was sold to Marine Salvage Limited in Port Coulbourne, Ontario. Upon arrival at Marine Salvage, her car deck was loaded with scrap metal to make her seaworthy to conclude her final glorious 7000 mile journey to Spain, where, after decades of traversing winter storms, thick lake ice, and summer gales, her days came to an end as she was finally scrapped.

Robert Warrick shared

Arthur K. Atkinson/Ann Arbor #6

Arthur K. Atkinson/Ann Arbor #6
Originally ordered for service on Lake Erie, the #6 was diverted to Lake Michigan and the service of the Ann Arbor. In 1959 the ship was dramatically rebuilt. Steam engines gave way to diesel power and the hull was lengthened from 338 to 372 feet, allowing the vessel to carry 30 railroad cars. The ship re-entered service with a new name, Arthur K. Atkinson, in honor of the then president of the Ann Arbor's parent firm. Between 1973 and 1979 the Atkinson was laid up with a broken crankshaft. Eventually put back into service in 1980, the ship was laid up in 1982. It has passed through the hands of several owners since then, but has never been put back in service.
[cmich]

Clare Union Railroad Depot posted

NECESSITY IS THE MOTHER OF REINVENTION: A Warrick Wednesday tutorial on when good just wasn’t enough…

The August 4, 1958 issue of “Railway Age Magazine” featured an article called “Car Ferry Gets a New Look. Ann Arbor’s Refurbished No.6 scheduled to reenter service this year.”

In 1955, four thousand more loaded rail cars on Ann Arbor vessels crossed Lake Michigan than the previous year, bringing the total to over 65,000. Ann Arbor Railroad (AA) was running three fast freight trains each way between Toledo and Boat Landing on a regular schedule, timed to sync with the ferry operation. Additional trains were also run each day to keep up with the traffic. The Ann Arbor Railroad concluded that all this activity called for a new car ferry to meet the demand of its cross lake service.

To expand the capacity of cross-lake operations, the AA drew up plans for a new car ferry similar in design to rival the Chesapeake & Ohio’s “City of Midland” built in 1941, as well as their Badger and Spartan, both built in the early 1950’s. But the estimated cost proved to be much more than expected, so the project was scuttled. The AA began to look at other alternatives to augment their aging car ferry fleet.

In 1955, the railroad’s five vessel fleet consisted of the Ann Arbor Nos. 3,5,6, and 7 and the newest, the 1927 Wabash. 3 and 5, built in 1898 and 1910, were deemed too old to be economically upgraded, and thus the 1916 built No.6 was chosen to be rebuilt. She was underpowered compared to newer car ferries, which added to her deficiencies as an icebreaker, and increases in rail car length had limited her capacity to a mere 24 loaded rail cars.

Ann Arbor No. 6 made its way to the Manitowoc (WI) Shipbuilding Company for a complete overhaul which began as she was cut in two and had 34 feet added to her length. Her spar deck was raised two feet to allow taller loads on the car deck, and her four scotch boilers and two 3 cylinder triple expansion steam engines were removed. The engines were replaced with two labor saving 2750 horsepower Nordberg non-reversing V-12 diesel engines. . The engines were connected to Westinghouse reduction gears that turned two KaMeWa pitch-reversing propellers. Control of the propellers was housed in a single lever that could shift their pitch and change their direction, making the boat highly maneuverable and responsive. Other improvements made the ship highly maneuverable and responsive. Although given diesel engines for power, No. 6 still relied on labor intensive steam for steering, winches, and heating. With increased speed (18 miles per hour), capacity (now 27 fully loaded rail cars), and a stretch from stem to stern of 372 feet, AA No.6 was ready for her (somewhat checkered) second chapter.

As seen in the photo from the Warrick Collection, her appearance was completely altered during the rebuild. The new bridge and single smokestack made her look like a modern ocean liner. The conversion cost of $2.3 million dollars was money well spent when compared to the cost of a new ferry coming in at nearly $7 million. Her new cruising speed cut off an hour of the schedule of the steam powered days, and she proved herself to be an excellent ice breaker. (At this point in time, car ferries were a year round operation).

Less than a year after rebuilding began, the ship returned to service as the Flagship of the Ann Arbor fleet as the newly christened MV Arthur K Atkinson on March 14, 1959. This was to honor Mr. Atkinson, the outgoing egotistical and flamboyant Wabash Railroad president. The railroad proudly hosted “Open Houses” on both sides of Lake Michigan for shippers to inspect the “new” vessel. (see comments)

Originally launched in Ecorse, Michigan in 1916, and redesigned 42 years later, the ship under the Atkinson name weathered damaging storms, equipment difficulties (she was once laid up for over 6 years awaiting repairs), and finally retirement in 1982. A 1994 plan to convert the Atkinson into a casino ship in Ludington only delayed her fate, as eventually she was towed to Sault Ste. Marie from DeTour and scrapped in 2012 at the MCM facilities.

Robert Warrick shared

Richard Fiedler shared

Towns and Nature

Friday, April 24, 2020

Elberta, MI: Ann Arbor Ferry Dock and ARTHUR K. ATKINSON/ANN ARBOR #6 Ferry

Arthur K. Atkinson/Ann Arbor #6

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