Another silence breaker

[Randal R Largent]

Hi guys and I assume girls.
I have been continuing trying to track down plans for the PS rail car
ferries, Great Western, and Lansdowne and have come to more dead ends
although I did run across a couple of tidbits that could help build a
"representation" of these two.
Now I am leaning toward the car ferry PS Transport which was also used
across the Detroit River and have pretty good side, overhead and cross
section views from a book that I enlarged. I found a note in a rail
road modeling book that HO Scale equals about 3.5 mm to the foot, 7mm=2',
14mm=4' etc., so I now have a "plan" that is 899mm long=254', hull beam
of 161mm=45.75' not including the wheelswhich are about 90mm=28'
diameter.
The side view in discussion appears to show at the stern a rudder.
Does anyone know if rudders were a common facter in sidewheelers?
For that matter are they a part of sternwheelers? I can guess that
steering with siders could be done with reversing one of the wheels while
the other goes forward but a sterner just has one wheel, correct? Or is
it split into two halves?
Merry Christmas from me too.
Randy Largent

[Ron Wild]

Hi Randall, In this part of the world the sternwheelers have one single paddle and usually three rudders mounted just ahead of the wheel. this does not make for really good steering as the wash from the paddle is not passed through the rudders as in conventional ships using a propeller rather than a paddle. Ron

[Joe E Brown]

> The side view in discussion appears to show at the stern a rudder.
> Does anyone know if rudders were a common facter in sidewheelers?

Sidewheelers do have a rudder on the stern.

> For that matter are they a part of sternwheelers?
> the other goes forward but a sterner just has one wheel, correct?
Or is it split into two halves?

Sternwheelers have two sometimes three rudders ahead of the wheel.
When heading downstream in a current they often ran engine in reverse
to enable them to have steerage control when rounding a bend. Later
they discovered that placing rudders after the wheel enabled better
control going forward. These were named "monkey rudders" because that
are connected with the steering rudders and move accordingly with the
steering rudders. They were named monkey rudders after an old
saying "Monkey see monkey do".

There are sternwheelers that have a split wheel that can reverse one
from the other, but they were usually used on the smaller "Pool
boats". Sone, like the Mississippi Queen, have a split wheel with the
buckets on one half halfway forward of the other. That enables a
better ride with less vibration throughout the hull when the buckets
hit the water. There were also some boats with "helical wheels"
meaning they were "V" shaped to reduce vibration. The idea didn't
catch on because repairs were too time consuming and expensive. The
George M. Verity was one of the first to experiment with a helical
wheel. There is a photo of it in the photo archives. You can go to my
website, go to my Plans page and click on the link for the detail
photos to see pics of the real Verity that is now a museum in Keokuk,
IA. I also added a fraction to decimal chart to the scale chart page

Happy Holidays.....

[whaleboat]

Hello Randy,

Try the Dossin Great Lakes Museum, 100 Strand/Belle Isle, 313-267-
6440 in Detroit. I believe they have a set of plans (1/8 inch to 1
foot I think) of a rail ferry and I believe it is Transport. If you
don't have any luck I will try to find a set of plans I have
somewhere in my files.

Al Blevins

[Randal R Largent]

Thanks Al.
I called Dossins today and they do not have those plans.
However I was told that Bowling Green U does so I emailed them and they
replied that they would check their files and get back to me in the next
2 or 3 weeks.
Good luck on your project.
Randy

[whaleboat]

Hello Randy,

Let me know how you make out with BGU. In the meantime I will make a
concerted effort to find the plans, I know they are in that file
cabinet..somewhere.

Al Blevins