City of Midland 41
 The City of Midland 41 outside Ludington, July 1976
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The City of Midland 41 was a rail ferry operated by the US Pere Marquette Railway that entered service in 1941. The ship, active until November 1988, was deployed between Ludington , Milwaukee and Kewaunee . In 1997 the City of Midland 41 was converted into a barge and has been used since then under the name Pere Marquette 41 .
history
Service as a ferry
The City of Midland 41 was laid down in the Manitowoc Shipbuilding Company in Manitowoc on March 21, 1940 , and launched on September 18, 1940. On March 12, 1941, the ship was put into service on the route from Ludington to Milwaukee and Kewaunee. It was one of the largest rail ferries ever built for service on the Great Lakes .
The City of Midland 41 remained in ferry service after the outbreak of World War II in the United States, but was also used as a training ship for the United States Coast Guard , as it had a propulsion system similar to that of the Casablanca-class escort aircraft carrier .
In 1947 the Pere Marquette Railway and thus the City of Midland 41 became the property of the Chesapeake and Ohio Railway, which continued to use the ship on its old service route. In 1952 she was supplemented by the new Spartan , followed by her sister ship Badger in 1953 .
In the mid-1970s, the Chesapeake and Ohio Railway decided to slowly cease ferry operations. As the first of the three large rail ferries, the Spartan was retired in 1979 . The City of Midland 41 and the Badger remained in service for the time being.
In 1983, both ships were decommissioned and sold to the Michigan-Wisconsin Transportation Company, which continued the liner service. However, this turned out to be too unprofitable and costly. In 1987, the boilers in the engine room of City of Midland 41 also showed signs of age during an inspection by the United States Coast Guard and should have been replaced. The Michigan-Wisconsin Transportation Company put the ship in line service for another year.
In 1988, the shipping company decided to retire the City of Midland 41 and instead reactivate the Badger, which has been inactive since 1984 . In November 1988, the ship completed its last crossing and was then laid up in Ludington after 47 years of service .
Service as a barge
The City of Midland 41 spent the next eight years in Ludington before being towed out of Ludington Harbor on October 1, 1997 to be converted into a barge. By November 7, 1997, all of the ship's superstructures had been dismantled.
The City of Midland 41 is still in service as a barge under the name Pere Marquette 41 . Her home port is still Ludington. She is pushed by the historic tug Undaunted , which originally entered service in 1944 for the United States Navy under the name ATA 199 .
In November 2013, a crew member of the tug died in an accident on board the Pere Marquette 41 .
literature
- Art Chavez: SS City of Midland 41 . Images of America, 2004, ISBN 978-0738532530
Web links
- Website for the ship at carferries.com (English)
- the Pere Marquette 41 on boatnerd.com (English)
Individual evidence
- ↑ Patti Klevorn: tug-barge employee in this tragic accident onboard, remembered as 'Tall Mike'. November 3, 2013, accessed June 2, 2016 .