MQ construction drawings

Invite

George -

I believe that you have to invite people to the link on Dropbox through Dropbox via email. Please invite me - [email protected] Thanks.

I am interested if they're still available. My email is: [email protected]

MQ blueprints

The construction drawing are available for free downloading by going to steamboats..com, MQ page at the bottom and there is a link to download them for free. The password is "Queen"

Could you please post a link to the site. I was unable to find it. Thanks.

MQ blueprints

I will try again:

Mississippi Queen blueprints
Type "Queen" into the box that appears in this link and you will be able to download the plans. They are divided into two sections (TIF and PDF). Be advised that downloading all of the files will take some time.

click here to see George Burch's monument to the Mississippi Queen
that includes the Mississippi Queen mermaids

I don't believe it went through. It is located at the steamboats.com museum page, Mississippi Quuen page near the bottom.

The link in question is here:

Mississippi Queen

Scroll to the bottom of the page. Immediately beneath the last photo, click the link "Mississippi Queen blueprints", which will take you to a third-party website. There, next to Job Key, type Queen and click the Unlock button. Choose the View Plans tab, where you can download either the PDF or TIF files.

*MISSISSIPPI QUEEN engine plans here*
Steamboating colleagues,
First, a VERY HAPPY NEW YEAR, 2015 to you all. Returned from a holiday week in the wilds of windy, cold, snowy Michigan getting settled in here, catching up with the house and .org postings.

Jon, thanks for providing the information and LINK to the above requesting this data. Having been around/on site during the MQ design, building way back then, I do recall seeing extensive plans for the boat in great detail. Now a good question how many other 'sets' of plans may have been around I don't know about after all these years.

The DELTA QUEEN STEAMBOAT Co. also had extensive file drawers containing detailed B/W photos, written specifications of nearly each and every step of the boat's work, fitting out in their files. Whatever happened to all of that material following Betty Blake's departure from the company when she set up her own PR company [BETTY BLAKE & ASSOCIATES] next door to Christ Church Cathedral on 4th Street here in town a good question. No doubt much retained, much pitched out, much scattered to the four winds and seven seas.

There was also a rather large scale model of the MQ in a glass case on display in the Cincinnati offices used for travel promotions, travel trade shows 'selling' both the DELTA QUEEN & MISSISSIPPI QUEEN when the company had traveling sales representatives. I was asked/volunteered to field a travel convention booth here at the Cincinnati Convention Center with lots of folders, flyers and that large model. Granted not as finely worked as other models by our own John Fryant, but pretty good. Anybody know or remember any of this above? I know it isn't a figment of my imagination or faulty memory. Again, I am no expert and would never never want to be called such on one single thing as to so claim can come back to haunt one.

Leading up to the MQ's initial design, the company mailed out/handed out survey/marketing letters requesting from past passengers, those interested, what they felt should be built into the new boat along with personal letters providing more details, ideas.

Chief Engineer Kenny Howe did hand me a large set of MQ engine plans in detail that I have here rolled up in my 'dusty boxes' to pull out, examine.

Then another 'shoe dropped' here. I'm sure more than a few of you around THEN who are here NOW recall mumblings, whispers about some idea/scheme to power the MISSISSIPPI QUEEN with--YIKES!--nuclear energy in a compact reactor. Naturally, that idea died a' borning in short order with no further word for obvious reasons. Yet it was discussed around the company office here for a time. Who of you here possibly remember that? Well, what do I know? Cheers!

R. Dale Flick
Coal Haven Landing, Ohio River, Cincinnati

Model of Misissippi Queen

Yes I have seen to fairly good size models of the Misissippi Queen. One was sold on e-bay last year.I tried to obtain it but was beaten out with exactly 13 seconds running on the clock. The other model I saw was in June of 2012 when I took a cruise of 6 days in the American Queen.They had it in a glass case located at a stairway an it was nicely done an pretty good size. excuse my spelling. Carole Matthews Pompano Beach Fla 33064.So somewhere out there are 2 existing models of the MQ. Every once in a great while you will see one of these on e bay an a lot of the Delta Queen of which I own 3.One big one medium on small.Some of these are nice an some I am sorry to say are a bit junky an overpriced. again excuse the spelling an thanks for reading.

Well Dale, I'd like to verify that your memory isn't shot, but then how unshot mine is, who knows...but I remember pictures of that model, with Betty and others looking at it. Now where those pictures were... good chance they were in the Reflector, but to get to mine I'd have to go up through my uninsulated attic in this below zero weather... but I do remember seeing them. Keith, that couldn't be the same model which is now on display at the Howard, is it?

*Long memories/Cold attics/MQ models*
Burrr, to Judy and Steamboating colleagues this morning,
Judy, I also have a cold "attic" and garage storage room here with those pesky big boxes of back REFLECTORS dating to 1964 in double sets not in perfect chronological order. I can only imagine what the weather is like out there on your "Rock Island tundra." Many wisely put their issues in those green plastic binders for easy retrieval.

Interesting reading of Carole Matthews and her "three models" down in Florida. I've also seen some DQ/MQ or other steamboat models ranking on the verge of semi primitive 'folk art' unlike the finer models people like John Fryant and others have built. I have neither the time, patience, skill, visual acuity or digital dexterity to get into model building. I had a real eye opener seeing in England several years ago the gold medal winners in ship/boat models for the Prince Philip Awards that blew my mind away. Incredible near microscopic detail even down to working engines in scale using live steam in little boilers.

Twice I recall being asked years back to help haul several of those big glass cased DELTA QUEEN/MISSISSIPPI QUEEN models off of either boat, over the stage and into the back of a van or truck tripping, stumbling on the stone blocks of a slanted landing. WHEW! No doubt there are far more of those commercial 'trade models' out there floating [No pun intended] around. There are models and then there are real 'models.' Cheers!

R. Dale Flick
Coal Haven Landing, Ohio River, Cincinnati

Good Morning Dale: For many years there was a very large model, I think of the MQ, at the Greater Cincinnati airport. It sat right at the top of the esculators up in the lobby/waiting area. This all got changed with the new security, where did the model go. Maybe the airport management placed it in storage. The airport is now like a ghost town.

*CVG Airport boat models/IQ's bell*
Morning, again Bill and Steamboating colleagues,
Cap n' Bill, I also remember the 'old' air terminal here at CVG Cincinnati with the steamboat model on display. The MQ wasn't the only model plunked up there for people to see. I 'thought' for a time a DQ model was also there. No doubt they were roated out by the DELTA QUEEN STEAMBOAT CO. here as a display to pique the interest of arriving/departing passengers. This same thing done in other major air terminals around the country as a 'promo.' Those old terminals there now 'provincial' compared to the massive, sprawling, glitsy terminals with aove and below ground rail trains.

The ever eagle-eyed GREENE LINE Purser Bob McCann loved going over there to eat in the period steamboat restaurant, watch the planes come and go. Bob knew all the nomenclature, design, engines on aircraft and their schedules as much as he did steamboats. You, Frank Prudent and others also remember the assumed 'steamboat bell' on display touted as "...the surviving bell from the last ISLAND QUEEN, 1947." Tain't so. Bob McCann, with hat brim turned back, would rock on his heels fumbling his gold pocket watch chain looking at that purported IQ bell, tapping it with a quarter. "No way...not from the last ISLAND QUEEN...not the same size...this bell from a railroad locomotive." Others also with familiarity had previously cast their own doubts.

Well, Bob's pronouncement was proven right pronto with some very red faces at the airport with it being removed. I 'thought' there was some mumbling that that bell was later sent to the Cincinnati Historical Society but don't know proof positive. *But that's not the whole story. Years later here I received a phone call along with a letter from an unknown gentlemen who was obviously 'tiffed in a snit' over the purported "IQ bell..."where is it now?...should be saved as a precious relic...your steamboat organization [S&D] and Cincinnati should be ashamed!...yada...yada." His call to me far from "delightful" in the tone of near hysterical 'steamboat romance.' Again, don't provoke me without just cause.

Well, I rocked on my own heels getting proof, information together as an answer [Rememember never to be wrong at the top of your voice]. In days my return phone call to whomever wherever was still met with anger, sputtering etc. until I REPEATED what I knew from memory and what Capt. John Beatty [He was still living] told me. The phone was quietly put down on the other end with not one "thanks...kiss my foot..go to..." Well, you know the rest. Again in a turn on a saying, "Angels rush out when fools rush in." Could be more of my "long memories." Well, what do I know?

R. Dale Flick
Coal Haven Landing, Ohio River, Cincinnati

MQ other models an Dale Flick

Dale You have the greatest postings in the world.Just fascinating reading.Cannot wait for the next one.Dont ever stop.Carole Matthews Pompano Beach Fl 33064. Saw a nice model of the MQ on American Queen in 2012 they had it in a case by stairs an there was one on e bay which looked good last fall.Someone else got it but I tried. So probably more out there besides?

Dale, the Cincinnati Historical Society has two MQ models - one very large - one very small. They said that the large one came from the airport.(CVG) It is in a huge case with an aluminum frame. This might be the one you referred to in your post. I don't know anything about the small one. Both need cleaning/refurbing. I'm tentatively scheduled to work on both plus the rest of the steamboat models they have in storage.

ALso, the Howard Museum has an MQ model. As I recall, it looks like one of the original design concept models. Curator Keith probably has all the info on that one.

*Models/ISLAND QUEEN bell story*
Greetings, Carol, John and Steamboating colleagues:
We have posted, discussed the ellusive bell from the last ISLAND QUEEN here more than once, but it bears repeating. Again the IQ bell touted at CVG Cincinnati Airport was 'bogus'--no two ways about that.

The late Capt. John Beatty had the contract, as Capt. Bill Judd knows, to salvage the wreck of the exploded, burned last ISLAND QUEEN at Pittsburgh, September, 1947. John had a number of fine IQ relics in his home down in Kentucky. John listened to my account of the man who wrote and phoned me. "Dale, that just ain't so. The main big bell on the top deck of the ISLAND QUEEN was totally lost in the fire. The low melting point of the bell's metal caused it to melt and dribble down in globs through the wreck as the wind that day was blowing from her stern up to the bow." The late Virginia Bennett did have a 'gong' from the IQ engine room for years at her home. There were, indeed, other relics salvaged but not any big bell. Yet, leave it to me to have some gray haired sage older than me of long memory step up to the microphone to counter all. There are times when 'history has something else on its mind.'

John Beatty also had in his den/office 'tubes' of rolled and counted U.S. currency coins from the ISLAND QUEEN's purser office that had been melted/fused together due to the terrific heat of the fire. Any of you out there remember seeing this at John's house? Again, what do I know?

PS> Mickey Frye still has a surviving braided cord whistle or bell pull from the IQ's pilothouse that had been removed for repair before the explosion and fire; thus saving it. I remember it being in near navy marlinspike weaving/braiding in red/white/blue. Are my dismal memories correct on this? 'Takes a village to tell a story.'

R. Dale Flick
Coal Haven Landing, Ohio River, Cincinnati.