And we thought steam calliopes were only on the Mississippi!

"Succes"

Hi Travis,

the boat is called Succes and located in Kampen, Netherlands. She´s built in 1897 in Dordrecht, Netherlands. Her current steam engines are dating from 1916 (also built in Dordrecht). She has twin screws. She was originally built as a tugboat and ice breaker for the harbors and operated until 1973. In the end of the 1980ies the new owner converted her as a passenger boat. Some years ago an additional diesel engine was installed so the boat can run by diesel or by steam engine.

Unfortunately the website is in Dutch only

http://www.faim.nl/

Click on "Diverse Extra´s" for a picture and a sound file.

"Virtuele rondleiding" leads you to a virtual tour of the boat. Click on the photo and another window pops up, click on "volgende" for the next panorama photo.

The calliope has been added by the current owner. It´s said to be a copy of the calliope of the steamer Washington. I think we have a CD somewhere on our dusty shelves.

Carmen

The Dutch, as well as the Germans, are known for their organ building. Since calliopes are somewhat related to pipe organs, I can see why there are calliopes in Holland.

Travis Vasconcelos;3731 wrote: I found one that even surprized me...a steam calliope on a steamboat in Rotterdam!

Here, see the video for yourself.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=weZb9a23BvU&mode=related&search=

~Travis~

So Travis is a scheepsstoomorgelspieler, nicht wahr??? The little piece on the calliope was The Entertainer - just click on the pix for the tune.

Richard, back in the 60s when I was studying for my MA in German, one of my fellow students was in the program because he intended to become an organbuilder and he said that not only did he want to apprentice in Germany, but that the best literature on pipe organs was in German.

Thanks to Carmen for the link to Succes. Dutch or English the wonderful photos tell the story, forget the words. One neat boat. It would be nice if some of our boats placed photos like these in their brochures.

De Majesteit

O.k. folks, I have to correct myself:

The "Succes" obviously used to be the only steamboat with a calliope here in Europe. I don´t have speakers on my office computer so I didn´t watch the video Travis posted. Now I´ve seen it and it´s a new calliope on the paddlesteamer "de Majesteit" in Rotterdam. Franz visited the boat a couple of years ago and talked to the owner. No calliope then! Obviously it´s been added recently.

Here´s the website of "de Majesteit"

http://www.raderstoomboot.nl

This boat was built in 1926 in Cologne, Germany, for the Koeln-Duesseldorfer (K-D) which still owns the paddlesteamer Goethe. The first name was Rheinland, then it was renamed Ruedesheim. In 1983 the Ruedesheim went out of service. Only the Goethe has been restored by K-D and brought back into service in 1996. The Ruedesheim was sold to Klemens Key in 1993 who restored her to her current beauty. K-D sold the boat with a condition: The boat is not allowed to return to the Rhine river. Klemens Key also owned the paddlestemer Freya which he restored too. But he wanted a bigger boat. So he sold the Freya (formerly known as "de Nederlander") to Germany

http://www.raddampfer-freya.de/

The Freya is a combination of the old hull of the steamer Westerschelde from 1905 and steam engines of 1923. Additionally the Freya has a screw (diesel powered). Klemens Key rebuilt this boat in 1990.

Klemens Key also owned the steam engines of the paddlewheeler Ludwig Fessler still running on lake Chiemsee near Munich. The Ludwig Fessler was dieselized in 1973. The steam engine is now owned by a Swiss organisation which wants to renovate the former paddelsteamer Neuchatel on lake Neuenburg. The only problem is, they do not own the boat which is used as a floating restaurant :-).

Believe me, it doesn´t surprise me that Klemens Key has added a calliope to the "de Majesteit". I asked Franz to email him and ask him about the calliope.

Carmen

PS: Click on the first photo on this page and a new window pops up with more photos of the de Majesteit made by Franz during his visit

http://www.schaufelraddampfer.de/pages/benelux/holland.php

(unfortunately I haven´t found the time to translate my European website)

Judy, the tune I heard from the site was the Maple Leaf Rag--also a Scott Joplin tune.
S'
David D.