Joel Dinda's photos with the keyword: ferry

Ludington, Michigan. Photo taken 7/15/2013.

Passengers on Lake Michigan ferry SS Badger, en route from Manitowoc, Wisconsin, to Ludington, Michigan.

Two more passengers from our Lake Michigan crossing on SS Badger.

Cars arriving for loading onboard SS Badger in Manitowoc, Wisconsin. Badger holds about 180 automobiles and over 600 passengers; she seemed to be nearly full this trip. The physical layout of the loading area makes it difficult for passengers to take a good photo of Badger at either end of the voyage, so we'll go with this one. A very grey day, at this point.

Crossing Lake Michigan on SS Badger from Manitowoc, Wisconsin, to Ludington, Michigan. Michigan's shoreline (Ludington State Park, I expect) in the background.

The Coast Guard sent this cute little boat to join us outside Ludington and follow us into the harbor. Doubtless on a Homeland Security mission. Looked like a fun mission. From the deck of SS Badger

A big truck. Looking down at Lake Michigan from SS Badger. There's a substantial gate, but it had been raised at this point as we were nearing the Ludington dock

The best photo I took on our "accidental" visit to Port Huron's Desmond Landing. This tank was left behind when the Ferry Yard was abandoned. I presume it contained fuel for the switcher, but that could (of course) be all wrong....

This is the ferry slip in Port Huron, Michigan, taken from the park they've built at Desmond Landing . CSX used to have a busy yard, just south of the Black River, whose purpose was to handle rail traffic which crossed the US/Canadian border on barges. That traffic has migrated to the new St. Clair tunnel (now named for Paul Tellier ), which opened in 1995. That's Sarnia, Ontario, in the background.

From our little (one night) Ludington vacation, last July. Explored! #415 [10/21/13] Thanks, everyone!

Entering Ludington's harbor.

Railroad carferry Chief Wawatam at St. Ignace in either 1977 or 1978. The Chief was the last and greatest of the Mackinac Straits railroad ferries. By 1978, cross-strait rail traffic had been reduced to a trickle, and this ship's crossings were relatively rare. She'd retire in 1984, be cut down a few years later, and is now in service as a barge. Since I didn't know our family had ever photographed her, discovering this snapshot was a bit of a shock. I scanned a carousel of slides this afternoon. Except for this picture and a couple fine Marquette photographs, the set is pretty much a generic northern Michigan set. The box believes the photographs were taken by my brother , but there's some internal evidence that at least half, including this one, were likely taken by my sister . Regardless, this photograph was developed and made into a slide in May of 1978. Debbie, Dick: Do either of you remember taking this? My best guess is that Debbie took the shot, from Sandy Kimbrough's car , just days before the set was developed.

SS Badger's sister ship, photographed from inside Badger as we disembarked at Ludington. Both ships were originally built to carry trains across Lake Michigan for the Pere Marquette Railway. Changing railroad practice made them obsolete; Badger's current daily trips carrying autos and tourists were originally a secondary function for PM's fleet. Actually, Spartan is less a sister at this point than a spare parts store, I gather. While Lake Michigan Carferries talks about putting her back into service, it's difficult to imagine when or how that will happen.

"July 10, 1939 Grand Trunk R.R. Ferry Lansdowne Between Detroit and Windsor" This photo is severely cropped from the original, which mostly showed water. This is one of the more famous ships in the Borucki collection. Lansdowne was launched as a carferry in 1884--at the time, the longest ship on the Lakes--and continued in that role until roughly 1972 (sources vary a bit; she was officially retired in 1978). She was the last sidewheel steamer operating on the lakes. The steam powerplant was removed in 1970 after a piston blowout and she was pushed by a tug for her last couple seasons. After her retirement she was converted to a Detroit-waterfront restaurant, using a pair of Milwaukee Road Skyliners as the dining room. By 1990 the restaurant had failed, but she was still moored by the RenCen when we took our MHSD tour. I've been looking for a photo I took that day--I remember it as being unusually lousy--but haven't yet located it. Until quite recently she was moored in Buffalo , still with the MILW cars on her deck. A succession of owners had tried to revive the restaurant, without anything resembling success. In 2009 she sank, for the second time, at the Buffalo dock, and has reportedly been dismantled. A sad end. I understand the Skyliners have been saved. More information here . And here . And Andy McFarlane published an old photo of her on MichPics several years ago. Borucki's Lakers

I'm behind, and playing catch up. Some days you just know what the daily photo will be; last June 16 the collapsed Chief Wawatam loading structure was that photo. This is just painful . More discussion in the (flickr) comments to the 366 Snaps photo. ========== This photograph is an outtake from my 2012 photo-a-day project, 366 Snaps . Number of project photos taken: 20 Title of " roll :" Wawatam Light Other photos taken on 6/16/2012: We wandered along the beach, north of town, and walked the St. Ignace boardwalk. I managed about 600 pix in the process.