Badger (ship)
 The Badger on July 8, 2007 while exiting the port of Manitowoc , Wisconsin
|
||||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||||
The Badger Ferry is the last coal-fired steam boiler and piston steam engine powered passenger ship in the United States to be in regular commercial service. As part of US Highway 10 , the ship connects the cities of Ludington in Michigan and Manitowoc in Wisconsin on Lake Michigan .
history
The ship was built in 1952 by the Christy Corporation shipyard in Sturgeon Bay as a rail ferry for the Chesapeake and Ohio Railway and was given road number 43. The ship was named after the University of Wisconsin athletics team , the Wisconsin Badgers . After its commissioning on March 21, 1953, it was used for the transport of motor vehicles and rail vehicles on the approximately 100-kilometer route Ludington-Manitowoc on Lake Michigan. Together with other ferries and her sister ship , the technically similarly equipped Spartan , the Badger served for these crossings for almost twenty years.
From the 1970s onwards, ferry services were restricted due to deteriorating economic conditions. On July 1, 1983, the railway company stopped ferry operations. The Spartan , Badger and City of Midland 41 ferries were sold to a new local operator named Glen L. Bowden of Ludington (Michigan-Wisconsin Transportation Company); In 1988 it was the last remaining car and rail ferry on Lake Michigan. On November 16, 1990, the company faced bankruptcy and ceased ferry operations, which appeared to mark the end of the 98-year history of ferry shipping on Lake Michigan. After a period of about one year, the Badger was acquired by Charles F. Conrad (Lake Michigan Carferry Service), who overhauled it for pure car and truck transport and put it back into service. Since then, the ship has been sailing the aforementioned route between the cities of Ludington and Manitowoc.
Special official license plates
In 1996 the ship's propulsion system was elevated to the status of a technical monument by the American Society of Mechanical Engineers .
The Michigan Historical Commission and the Wisconsin Historical Commission added the Badger to their respective monument lists in 1997.
The badger was inscribed on the National Register of Historic Places on December 11, 2009 ; on January 20, 2016, the National Park Service followed with recognition as a National Historic Landmark .
technology
The ship is around 120 meters long and around 18 meters wide. Since the ship was designed for year-round operation on Lake Michigan, its hull is ice-reinforced and classified with an ice class .
Four coal-fired boilers from Foster Wheeler (with stoker charging) generate steam at a pressure of 470 psi (32.9 bar) for two Skinner-Unaflow direct current steam engines , each with a capacity of 3500 HP . The steam engines drive two 4-blade propellers made of cast steel with a diameter of 4.22 meters. This drive construction has been unique among ships on the Great Lakes since 2013 and the decommissioning of the “ Lakers ” St. Marys Challenger .
At a cruising speed of 16 knots (the ferry reaches a maximum of 21 knots), the Badger consumes around 55 tons of coal per day. It can transport up to 620 passengers and 180 cars per trip. The team consists of between fifty and sixty people.
Environmental influences
The coal-fired drive was criticized more and more by environmental organizations and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) from 2008 onwards , as the ash - around 3.6 tons per day - was dumped from the boilers directly into the lake.
Previously, the Badger operated with a special permit contrary to the legal regulations against air pollution due to its historical importance as a coal-fired steamship. Operators' representatives downplayed the potential hazards of ash by comparing them to "harmless sand" and did not plan to change the original coal-fired design. Nevertheless, there were considerations to reduce the ship's harmful environmental impact on the sea; Plans included a conversion to a natural gas furnace (while preserving the historical boiler system) and a facility for on-board collection of the ashes, which should then be delivered on land.
Ultimately, the operator Lake Michigan Carferry signed an agreement with the US Department of Justice and the EPA in March 2013 , according to which the ash discharge into the lake would be stopped within two years using a new restraint system.
In January 2015, work began on a system to transport the ashes into four on-board collection bins. A new system for monitoring combustion was also used, which increases efficiency and thus reduces coal consumption. Today the ferry no longer releases ash into the lake; on land, the collected combustion residues are unloaded and used in cement production.
See also
Web links
- Website of the ship (English)
Individual evidence
- ↑ Steve Begnoche: Badger Honored as Engineering Landmark . In: Ludington Daily News , September 9, 1996.
- ^ State Historic Preservation Office: SS Badger . In: Historic Sites Online . Michigan State Housing Development Authority . 2009. Archived from the original on January 2, 2014.
- ^ National Park Service : National Register Information System . In: National Register of Historic Places . National Park Service.
- ↑ Listing of National Historic Landmarks by State: Michigan. National Park Service , accessed August 14, 2019.
- ↑ Todd Spangler: SS Badger Named National Historic Landmark . In: Detroit Free Press , February 18, 2016.
- ^ Patty Murray: SS Badger Car Ferry Named National Historic Landmark . Wisconsin Public Radio. February 22, 2016.
- ↑ a b Ben Kesling: Ship from Bygone Era Fights to Keep Sailing . In: The Wall Street Journal , Nov. 6, 2012.
- ↑ Michael Hawthorne: On Lake Michigan, a Coal-Burning Steamship Gets a Pass . In: Chicago Tribune , October 1, 2011.
- ↑ Lake Michigan Carferry: Lake Michigan Carferry Reaches Agreement with EPA . Lake Michigan Carferry. 2013.
- ^ Anne Rowan: EPA Strengthens SS Badger Consent Decree in Response to Public Comments; Penalties Increased for Failing to Cease Coal Ash Discharge to Lake Michigan by the End of 2014 Sailing Season , United States Environmental Protection Agency . September 16, 2013. Retrieved April 10, 2016.
- ↑ Lake Michigan Carferry, Inc., SS Badger . United States Environmental Protection Agency.
- ↑ Steve Begnoche:Badger Receives New Combustion Control System . In: Ludington Daily News , May 5, 2014. Archived from the original on January 19, 2015.
- ↑ SS Badger Cleared for Sailing by EPA . In: Detroit Free Press , May 15, 2015.