--- In Paddleducks@y..., Randal R Largent <ranjudl@j...> wrote:
> Hi guys and I assume girls.
Dont think we have any "girl Paddleducks" yet, Randy!
> 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.
Don't give up on them...it's amazing what you come up with if you keep
digging. After months of researching, we just located some OLD plans
for 4 of the Famous William Stroudley Cross Channel Railway
paddlewheelers I'm researching. These significant plans had been
languishing for many years almost unknown in a Museum in London,
England. Finding them might be just the ticket for getting some
modelers interested in building these beautiful and noteworthy ships.
I have a number of very good research resources for Railways in the
area of the Detroit River and some people who could possibly help.
Contact me by email and let's see if we can track down more info on
these ships. There are MANY local and National Archives which may
very well have clear photos and enough graphic information to run up a
decent set of plans. (boy..there's that CAD again!)
> 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
> wheels which are about 90mm=28' diameter.
HO scale (3.5 mm/ft or 1/87 scale) makes alot of sense for a 254'
ship which ends up at just around 35". However you MIGHT consider
scaling her up a tad to, say "S" Scale which is 1/64 scale giving you
just shy of 4' for an outstanding R/C model which should still fit
into the back seat of the car! (Forgive me for still working in
ft/inches!)
> The side view in discussion appears to show at the stern a rudder.
> Does anyone know if rudders were a common facter in sidewheelers?
Most of the sidewheelers I've ever looked at appear to have stern
rudders. What's interesting (and it was our Ady Selway who introduced
me to this when I was in the UK recently) is that a number of UK
Excursion sidewheelers were equipped with BOW rudders. This is so
that the paddler could go astern (reverse) straight out of a dock and
down a river to where there was a wider turning basin.
"Medway Queen" (Ady's passion) is equipped with a bow rudder and these
can clearly be seen in plans when you know where to look for them. My
undertsanding is that, because they were faired into hull and formed
to the bow, they were pretty heavy affairs and thus substantially
geared so one crewman could operate them. While in the UK I watched
an old video showing a bow rudder of a British sidewheeler in
operation and it looked like the helmsman was literally spinning the
wheel to turn the bow rudder.
> For that matter are they a part of sternwheelers?
Ron and Joe have covered that one eminently well.
> I can guess that steering with siders could be done with reversing
> one of the wheels while the other goes forward (snip)
Exactly...but strangely enough only in Paddle TUGS. In fact most of
the British sidewheel tugs I've researched have independent
paddlewheels which permit counter rotation for "spinning" the ship.
Alastair (Deayton) one of our resident experts here and a published
author on UK Excursion sidewheelers gave me the impression that almost
none of the passenger sidewheelers he has knowledge of were equipped
with independant wheels. (Alastair can clarify this if needs be!)
They all seem to have one common shaft joining the wheels. This all
boils down to a subject that interests me greatly. Apparently there
was a Maritime Law in England which forbad the use of split shafts for
passenger vessels and may have also required the split shafts of
paddle tugs to be joined when they were in open sea. I have tried to
tie this one down and spoken to a number of people in the UK who say
there is "something familiar" about this..but nobody can provide a
definite answer at this time.
I'd like to find out what the paddlewheel systems were for American
sidewheelers and tugs and whether there were any laws which governed
their wheel/shaft arrangements.
I found a fascinating account in Dugan's work on the "Great Eastern"
arriving in New York which says the ship could be spun with counter
rotating paddlewheels. Every "Brunel Expert" I have spoken to says
this is highly unlikely. I'd love to tie this one down too.
A model with counter rotating sidewheels is spectacular and virtually
unbeatable in any model steering competitions! However, my own opinion
is that this feature should only be modelled IF it existed on the
prototype.
> but a sterner just has one wheel, correct? Or is it split into two
> halves?
Sternwheelers generally have had one wheel, but there were certainly
those with split wheels which have been called "Quarter Wheelers". I
have seen examples of these which existed in the African Rivers and
they are VERY NEAT ships which would be great fun to model!!! I wonder
if any of our experts can tell us of any examples of quarter wheelers
which existed in other parts of the world.
So I hope this helps a little, Randy...and send me an email and let's
see if we can track down these Detroit River Ferry paddlers of
yours...coz if WE don't..WHO else WILL??
PJ
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