Does anyone have an interest in Czech steam tugs?

[davidwheeler]

I think my last one was too far off the mark. This one may be completely beyond the range of interest, but you never know.

 

The year is 1963. The tug is I think Czech since its number starts CSPLO. The coal-carrying barge has the number CSPLO629 I think. Registered in Prague thus perhaps a local coal delivery, but from where I have no idea. The River is the Vltava. The barge is towing an interesting-looking  wood tender.

 

Anybody got any constructive ideas? Otherwise I will pass it on to another site in case that is more appropriate. Anyway, a good looking pair of vessels, do you not agree?. And the building in the very far background is St Vita's Cathedral, where on a Sunday you can hear the most stunning trumpet playing from far above you. Or you could.

[Pluto]

Can't add much, but I think the area around Usti nad Labe has coal mines. I did visit a power station on the Labe north of Prague in 1995 which had coal delivered by push-tow units. There is a museum, https://www.idecin.cz/en/decin-museum, which has displaysn on the Labe shipping. When I visited the area in 1996, there was a variety of push-tow and motorised boats. The photo shows the border at Hrendsko, where boats stop to get customs inspections. I was fortunate to see the last towed boats on the Danube in 1995, which were Ukranian, IIRC.

[davidwheeler]

Thank you for that. Lovely barges. Maybe I will risk adding my Rhine steam paddle tug photos. And the first pusher tug on the Rhine. 1957 as I remember. It might be of interest. I will think about it. But it won't match this photography, or anything like it.

[magpie patrick]

3 hours ago, davidwheeler said:

I think my last one was too far off the mark. This one may be completely beyond the range of interest, but you never know.

 

The year is 1963. The tug is I think Czech since its number starts CSPLO. The coal-carrying barge has the number CSPLO629 I think. Registered in Prague thus perhaps a local coal delivery, but from where I have no idea. The River is the Vltava. The barge is towing an interesting-looking  wood tender.

 

Anybody got any constructive ideas? Otherwise I will pass it on to another site in case that is more appropriate. Anyway, a good looking pair of vessels, do you not agree?. And the building in the very far background is St Vita's Cathedral, where on a Sunday you can hear the most stunning trumpet playing from far above you. Or you could.

 Interesting to see that the barge is clearly capable of self propulsion but is using a tug - is that because of the current? Constrained channel? 

[Pluto]

You have to get use to the larger barges in Easter Europe, which usually had a covered steering location, which looked a little like a motor boat. They are quite difficult to photograph from the bank or boat. The first picture is of a tow of four barges passing Budapest, the second of a single tug and barge in the comparatively new lock at Gabcikovo. I suspect you could almost get a narrowboat in sideways.

[davidwheeler]

I have always assumed that this was an elderly unpowered barge. If my memory is correct they were coming out of a lock - there are I believe four in Prague - when I first saw them. The barge had a large grappling hook type anchor hanging off a davit at the stern, and one of the points of the hook dangled in the water. I thought by the extent of the accommodation block if such it is, that it was a long distance barge. There was a woman on the bulwarks, cleaning the deck. I am not expert on barges. I just like them and always have. 

Here in the hope that it will keep things going so that we get some more and better photos, is a 1957 photo of an orthodox tug with a number of barges - if you can make them out - and  another of the first pusher tug to operate on the Rhine. At least that was what we were told at the time, by somebody in authority. I don't know how much detail you can make out, but there were at least ten people on the temporary elevated bridge. Someone somewhere will perhaps be able to identify the  tug. Or at least the company, from the funnel markings.

[davidwheeler]

I have started this so I will go on.

These are photos of  Rhine paddle tugs. I have been and continue to be looking for someone to identify two them, or at least their owning company. There were not I think very many of these tugs still operating in 1957. Three of the photos, the ones taken from the shore, are of the Gustav Wegge. Built in 1926 by Gebr Sachsenberg, the builder of so  many of these ships, she became part of the famous Braunkohle fleet, immaculately maintained, two years later. Scuttled by her crew in 1945, to avoid capture by the Allies, she was salvaged the next year and continued in service until 1957, the year I watched this magnificent piece of engineering forge past. Even in those days these giants attracted attention. I feel privileged to have seen them at work. The Gustav Wegge was sold for breaking in 1959.

And just in case it is of interest, three of the Rhine passenger ferries. You bought the postcards on board with a souvenir stamp on. We spent the night on the Rheinland in Cologne after the journey from Boppard. It was exciting, but the heat from the steam engines was what I remember most.

There we are. I hope of some interest.

[Pluto]

From the passenger steamers, Goethe still survived in service until recently. There are at least two steam paddle tugs, The Oskar Huber at Ruhrort, and the Danube tug Ruthof/Érsekcsanád at Regensburg. I did see the sailing barge natch on the Muggelss, near Berlin, in 1997, but this seems no longer to take place.

[davidwheeler]

Thank you for those lovely photos.

We seem to have run out of steam a bit, at least I have so I am going to change the subject completely and show you some pictures of my school buses. They are all from postcards because I did not have a camera and anyway who takes pictures of school buses.

Most of the time it was this one - Col Vert, a launch built in 1960. Then as things picked up a little, Leman, originally built as a paddle steamer in 1857, but converted to motor ship in the 1930s. Scrapped in 1989. Then as the summer came on and more people were about, we would have the Lausanne, built in 1900, scrapped 1978. In full season, when tourists were on the lake as well as us students, the flagship La Suisse. Built in 1910. And if we were really really lucky, every now and then the Major-Duval would come along, as a reserve bus. Built in 1892. Scrapped in 1990.

Not a bad way of getting to and fro school. 

Not a lot to do with canals, but maybe of interest to some. I just loved them. A bit like British Rail Southern Region in the 1980s, you never quite knew what would turn up. So every day was interesting

[Bee]

I think there were stern wheelers on the Rhine until quite recently (?). the wheel was not like the Mississippi image of the wheel but buried ender the stern. Quite how the rudder arrangement worked I've no idea, must have been a bit unresponsive I'd have thought.

[magpie patrick]

1 hour ago, davidwheeler said:

some pictures of my school buses.

 

 

 I have mant photos of school buses in my university masters dissertation (late 80s) - but they all have wheels! I'd have got better grades with some of these floating ones I think...

 

1 hour ago, davidwheeler said:

Not a lot to do with canals,

 

 

Canals in the CWDF context is a generic term for inland waterways and the boats that use them - keep it coming. 

[davidwheeler]

Bee mentioned stern wheelers on the Rhine. I know nothing about those but I was, in 1961, completely fooled by the Berlin, built for the Koln Dusseldorfer in 1959. I thought it looked like a paddle ship even though it didn't sound like it. It was in fact propelled by two Voith Schneider props amidships. The Shell-BP tankers on the Gloucester & Berkeley Canal used the same system. 

[Pluto]

2 hours ago, Bee said:

I think there were stern wheelers on the Rhine until quite recently (?). the wheel was not like the Mississippi image of the wheel but buried ender the stern. Quite how the rudder arrangement worked I've no idea, must have been a bit unresponsive I'd have thought.

They were in operation on Czech waterways until about twenty-five years ago. One is preserved in the Berlin Harbour Museum, but it proved a little difficult to photograph, so this is the stern in 1996. You can just make out that there is a port and starboard wheel cover, so steering could have been by varying wheel rotation or speed. There is a rudder as well. The second photo shows one working on the Elbe at Dresden, photo from https://www.der-lustige-modellbauer.com/t29821-heckrad-dampfer-friedrich-der-bn-alles-unbekannt

[davidwheeler]

I am in the company of experts. I am out of my depth. 

To try to keep things going, I will add a couple of paddle steamers I met one half term in Lucerne in 1963. The 'Stadt Luzern' built in 1928 by Sachsenberg was and I hope still is, much favoured for Sunday mystery tours on the lake. When I travelled on her she was doing an average of 10300 km per year. The other steamer, the Schiller, of 1906, converted from coal to oil fuel in the 1950s, was considered by company staff and passengers as the best-proportioned and most elegant of the lake steamers. But more expensive to run than some of the others. Lovely ships both, as were the other steamers, and some fine motor vessels as well.

But the oldest ship on the Vierwaldstattersee still in existence is the Rigi. Built by Ditchborne & Mare, London, the Rigi made her first voyage in March 1848, carrying Thomas Cook's first visitors to Switzerland.  She continued, with various updates and revisions,  to work on the lake for over one hundred years. In 1958 she was hauled out of the lake and into the Transport Museum where she was the centrepiece, and a restaurant. Too pricey for me, although I had a good look round. Damaged as a result of the August 2005 flooding, she is I understand now a static display with her appearance restored to its original. And no longer a restaurant.

Anyone interested in lake steamers and motorships might find the book 'Schiffahrt auf dem Vierwaldstattersee' published by Verlag Eisenbahn in 1974 ISBN 3 85649 021 3. worthwhile. Individual descriptions of all the vessels are in German, and the illustrations of each and every one of the lake vessels are superb and need no translation. Easily obtainable over the internet. 

Any more contributions? I have exhausted mine, but I have learned a lot.

 

[Derek R.]

A former contributor who was involved with THEOPHILUS for a while, sent me two images of a Swiss lake paddle boat. I failed to recall the name, maybe someone will know.

 

 

[davidwheeler]

This is I think the Lotschberg, on Lake Brienz. Built by Escher Wyss in 1914. A real beauty. Very similar to one or two of the Lucerne steamer, but distinguished by the hull colouring. 

[Pluto]

Back in 1964, before being interested in canals, I volunteered on the Welshpool & Llanfair Rly, and we were invited to the re-naming of two locos on the Zillertal Rly. On the way, we visited the Chiemsee, where the way from the railways station to the quay was by a narrow-gauge railway. Here are photos of the railway, and the paddle-steamer Ludwig Fessel. I revisited in 2019, and the Ludwig Fessler was still in operation, as was the railway.

[davidwheeler]

Although there was huge public and political pressure on the Lake Geneva operators, the CGN,  to keep the traditional lake steamers going, the vessels were ageing and costly to maintain. Efforts were made to contain the expense by re-engining the workhorses with not always aesthetically pleasing results. The Lake Geneva steamer Vevey built in 1907 by Sulzer brothers was a two decker. In 1955 the steam engines were replaced by Sulzer diesels powering electric generators and her funnel was changed to what was then felt to be suitable for a motorship. But fashions change and in 1987 a more traditional style of funnel replaced the motorship one. But the vessels remained uneconomical  and expensive to run and in the early 1960s the first of the big Lake Geneva motorships was introduced. The postcard shows the new Henry Dunant in 1963.  The ship was built in Austria and brought across to the lake in bits and assembled in the CGN yards at Lausanne. The card was the copyright of the restaurateurs, M et Mme Rene Tissieres, and I thank them, belatedly, for allowing me to use it.  For those who may be interested in the fascinating and complex history behind the CGN ships there is an excellent book by Jacques Christinat ' Bateaux du Leman' published by Cabedita in 1991. 

 

[Pluto]

Lauserne was to be one terminus of Canal d'Entrerouches, the other being at Yverdon. The construction of the canal began in 1638, and by 1648 it had reached Cossonay, where a basin was built with the wharf house seen below, with the canal route identified by the road. The canal did operate fairly successfully by carrying wine and salt, though never in large quantities, and it was abandoned in 1829.

[davidwheeler]

One last go, then. Although on the great Swiss lakes, large passenger motorships began to compete with, and to replace some of the paddle ships in the late 1950s, on the Rhine the change began to happen rather earlier. Four of these motorships reflect something of the times.

In the 1930s, the German company Koln-Dusseldorfer operated its Rhine passenger service in association with the Dutch company Nederlandsche Stoomboot Rederij Akkermans,  the Dutch Rhine company, in that vessels of that fleet were chartered and were included in the KD timetable. Four of these Dutch motorships, combined passenger and cargo vessels, were built between 1938 and 1940. Attached is a photo of one of them. It is from Hans Renker's 'Koln Dusseldorfer Dampfer nach 1945. Die Letzten Vierzehn'. These four vessels were seized by the Wehrmacht after Holland was overrun, and used by it during WW11. In 1945, the four ships were returned to their Durch owners Akkermans. By 1951, the four had been rechartered by KD and were operating  on regular passage on the Rhine. In 1955 the KD purchased the four from Akkermans and rebuilt them as pure passenger vessels, propelled by Voith Schneider propellers. Not as attractive as the steamers, but powerful as was needed on the Rhine. I liked them.

[Pluto]

Returning to stern wheelers, they were used on the Oder, the pre-war ones being German-built. After the war, the Dutch built small and large tugs to help Poland recover. The small one pictured here is now preserved at Wroclaw. The photos were taken by the controller of the river traffic post-war, and he had a good eye for a picture, with a number of the families on the towed barges.

[Derek R.]

There was a wonderful YT video that has since been removed (?) showing a Pilot casting off from the bank in a small row boat, and almost casually arriving at the starboard side of a Steam paddle tug within about fifteen feet of the thrashing paddles. He throws a line to a deck hand, who also throws one to him making the row boat fast before climbing aboard and taking his position in the wheelhouse. His departure was almost as nonchalant - pure poetry and skill.