Railroad Tugboats were built in a variety of sizes
and configurations depending on the towing tasks they were intended
to handle. The most widely recognized railroad tugboats are those
which were build to handle carfloats (barges with railroad tracks
on deck) in harbor service. These tugs have a number of distinctive
features including high pilothouses for visibility over railroad
cars on the carfloats, rather flat sheer with low freeboard forward,
and very heavy hull construction to handle the compressive load
operating between floats. Many railroad tugs were originally equipped
with gasketed dutch doors that allowed leaving the top section
open for ventilation when standing alongside a pier, rather than
watertight doors. They were also virtually all "day boats",
manned in shifts, and fitted with locker rooms for the crew to
change from and to street clothes rather than having sleeping
quarters. As railroad carfloating was phased out in the 1980s,
many railroad tugs ended up in shipdocking service, often with
their pilothouses and stacks reduced in height. Some of the larger
railroad tugboats were originally designed for coastal coal barge
towing at a time when coal was still being widely used in home
heating and power generating applications. A number of railroads
used their tugs for ship docking work at the company's piers,
and a few railroads had tugs that were designed specifically for
ship docking.
Above: The New York Central No. 16 was
a non-condensing steam tug that operated for many decades in New
York Harbor carfloat service. In the 1980s she was rescued from
a marine scrapyard and installed in the parking lot of a restaurant
at the Bourne Bridge rotary in Bourne, Massachusetts. In 2006
the tug was scrapped by CVS when they bought the property for
a new pharmacy. The upper image was taken before the scrapper
arrived (Photo by Preston Cook), the lower image shows the result
(Photo by Charles Schneider).
Above: The Lehigh Valley Railroad's "Four
Aces", built in 1949 by Jakobson Shipyard, parade in this
colorized version of a famous railroad publicity shot. Lehigh
and Cornell were built with low pilothouse and stack
for Harlem River service, Wilkes-Barre and Hazleton
are traditional high pilothouse railroad tugs for interchange
carfloat service. Following the end of their use in railroad service
they all had long subsequent careers with commercial marine towing
companies. Cleveland Diesel Division publicity photo.
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Above: This view from New York Cross Harbor's
tug Cross Harbor I. demonstrates the need for the high
pilothouse on railroad tugs used in carfloat service. The Cross
Harbor I. was the former New Haven Railroad tug Bumblebee.
A silhouette of this vessel as she looked in her NHRR days is
shown at the bottom of the Tugboat Enthusiasts Society home page.
(Photo by Preston Cook)
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The tug Reid McAllister is shown underway
with the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center in the background
of this 1980s scene. This vessel is the former Erie Railroad tug
Binghamton, with the pilothouse and the stack lowered
to make the tug more suitable for ship docking service. (Photo:
McAllister Brothers Towing)
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(NOTE)
An article on noted railroad tug designer Joe
Hack appears in the May 2008 issue of Railfan & Railroad Magazine,
published by Carstens Publications, Post Office Box 700, Newton,
NJ 07860
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