thumb|300px|right| A railroad car float in the [[Upper New York Bay, 1919. A tugboat (towboat) stack is visible behind the middle car.]]

thumb|1912 PRR map showing the Greenville Terminal and its car float operations, also the current crossing

A railroad car float or rail barge is a specialised form of lighter with railway tracks mounted on its deck used to move rolling stock across water obstacles, or to locations they could not otherwise go. An unpowered barge, it is towed by a tugboat or pushed by a towboat.

This is distinguished from a train ferry, which is self-powered.

Historical operations

U.S. East Coast

During the Civil War, Union general Herman Haupt, a civil engineer, used huge barges fitted with tracks to enable military trains to cross the Rappahannock River in support of the Army of the Potomac.

Beginning in the 1830s, the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad (B&O) operated a car float across the Potomac River, just south of Washington, D.C., between Shepherds Landing on the east shore, and Alexandria, Virginia on the west. The ferry operation ended in 1906.

The B&O operated a car float across the Baltimore Inner Harbor until the mid-1890s. It connected trains from Philadelphia to Washington, D.C., and points to the west. The operation ended after the opening of the Baltimore Belt Line in 1895.

These car floats operated between the Class 1 railroads terminals on the west bank of Hudson River in Hudson County, New Jersey and the numerous online and offline terminals located in Brooklyn, Queens, Staten Island, the Bronx, and Manhattan. Class 1 railroads in the New York Harbor area providing car float services were:

<!-- None of the following articles mention actual car float terminals -->

  • Baltimore and Ohio Railroad
  • Central Railroad of New Jersey
  • Delaware, Lackawanna and Western Railroad
  • Erie Railroad and Erie Lackawanna Railroad
  • Lehigh Valley Railroad
  • Long Island Rail Road
  • New York Central Railroad
  • New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad
  • Pennsylvania Railroad

As well as the offline terminal railroads:

  • Brooklyn Eastern District Terminal
  • Bush Terminal/Industry City
  • Brooklyn Army Terminal
  • Hoboken Manufacturers Railroad
  • Jay Street Connecting Railroad
  • New York Dock Railway
  • Pouch Terminal
  • East Jersey Railroad and Terminal Co.

U.S. West Coast

  • Santa Fe Railroad: San Francisco
  • Southern Pacific Railroad: (?)
  • Union Pacific Railroad: (?)
  • Western Pacific Railroad: San Francisco
  • Chicago, Milwaukee, St. Paul and Pacific Railroad: Seattle; Tacoma, Washington; Bellingham, Washington; Port Townsend, Washington
  • Seattle and North Coast Railroad: Seattle; Port Townsend, Washington

Canada

right|thumb|[[Woodfibre, British Columbia]]

thumb|Car float in Howe Sound

  • Prince Rupert, British Columbia – Whittier, Alaska (Aquatrain, Service ended in April 2021.)
  • Various inland lakes of British Columbia (Okanagan, Arrow, Kootenay) (Canadian National Railway and CPR)
  • Port Maitland, Ontario – Erie, Pennsylvania (TH&B Navigation Company)
  • Port Burwell, Ontario – Ashtabula, Ohio (CN)
  • Cobourg, Ontario – Rochester, New York (Ontario Car Ferry Company)
  • Sarnia, Ontario – Port Huron, Michigan – rail-barge – (CN, until the opening of the Paul Tellier Tunnel). The rail ferries Pere Marquette 12 and Pere Marquette 10 were converted to barges (PM 10 in 1974, PM 12 in the 1980s) and used until 1995 to carry dangerous cargoes and oversize cars.
  • Windsor, Ontario – Detroit, Michigan (Grand Trunk, CN, CPR, Michigan Central, Wabash, until the 1980s)
  • BC Rail. until 1955 railcars were barged from North Vancouver to Squamish.
  • A large number of isolated BC pulp mills had chemicals and freight moved by car floats.
  • In the Victoria Harbour to Ogden Point

Existing operations

Alaska

The Alaska Railroad provides the Alaska Rail Marine rail barge service from downtown Seattle to Whittier on the central Alaskan mainland.', CN Rail provided the Aquatrain rail barge service from Prince Rupert, British Columbia to Whittier. Service ended in April 2021. The service exists because freight cars do not run in the East River Tunnels nor the North River Tunnels (under the Hudson River), in part due to inadequate tunnel clearances of the New York Tunnel Extension.

See also

  • Bay Ridge Branch
  • Cross-Harbor Rail Tunnel (proposed)
  • Ferry slip (includes examples of rail ferry and barge slips)
  • Linkspan
  • New York tugboats
  • Santa Fe Dock and Channel Company

References

  • Railroad ferry, Hudson River, New York, Andreas Feininger, 1940. Still Photograph Archive, George Eastman House, Rochester, NY.
  • NYNJ Rail – official site
  • Industrial & Offline Terminal Railroads of Brooklyn, Queens, Staten Island, Bronx & Manhattan