Topic starter
06/10/2011 8:13 pm
II have had a short story based on my riverboat novel accepted by an online magazine. They had questions about a couple things i said, and I wonder if you can help me answer them?
How would a sidewheeler launch from a quai in New Orleans - year 1855 if that matters? Would it simply reverse its paddleswheel and back out or would it need to be poled off the quai?
How long would a railroad trip from NO to St. Louis take in that same year, ballpark?
I managed to get my hands on the Ferris article by the way. i will scan it tomorrow to convert it to text since I can only read with text to speech, being legally blind. I was walking on air when the library let me know they had gotten it in.
Thanks for all your help!
Say I just read a novel about Sir james Brook in Borneo.. and ra steamboat was used to manueuver in the river when they fought the pirates to return him to his throne as rajah. Can't remember the exact date, but it was mid 1800s-ish.
Nan Hawthorne
[email protected]
06/10/2011 9:13 pm
Nan, I cannot answer your questions about the railroad trip, but can offer some insight into getting underway from New Orleans.
When you mention "launching from the quai", do you mean actual launching (as in a new-build boat, putting it in the water for the first time), or do you mean simply getting underway from the wharf after being tied up to discharge/load freight and passengers? If the former, the ways where the boat was built would have been greased and then tilted toward the water until the boat slid off of them.
If you refer to getting underway after discharging/loading, they would not have "poled off" in any case. There are several ways to depart a wharf, as they are called in this country (or at least in New Orleans. "Quay" is a British term, as far as I am familiar with). As to HOW they might come off the wharf depends on a number of factors -- the boat itself, how high the water was, whether they were tied up in an eddy, what direction and how hard the wind was blowing, whether the boat was light on cargo, passengers and wood, etc, etc. To simplify your story, it would be easiest to say they just backed off and got underway. Those who know the technicalities will find no fault with that, and those who do not won't know or care. To say they "poled off" would raise questions as to why, etc.
Hope this helps.
Topic starter
06/10/2011 10:47 pm
Most helpful
Bob, it was the latter and thanks!
Nan
06/10/2011 11:32 pm
*RE: James Brooke, 1803-1868*
Hi, Nan & Steamboating colleagues:
I know this isn't 'steamboats' but for your mention of James Brooke. My eyes bugged as I heard plenty about him in both England and in Malasia. Brooke was one of those romantic types part warrior part diplomat and business man during the time England was expanding her empire far and wide--focusing during that time on interests in Asia and S.E. Asia. Brooke had an 'ify' and controversial life personally and politically with many dark sides. He was born in Benares, India, the love son of Scotting peer William Stuart, 9th Lord Blantrye when being a Lord really meant something. 'Raj' from Sanscrit stemming from India means "he rules." The Raj system survived until India became independent from England in 1947 in the person of the late Lord Louis Montbatten, member of the British royal family and Battenberg.
Brooke aided the Sultan of Brunei in quelling various social, political, military issues becoming Rajah of Sarawak in 1841. The controversey you mentioned with him well recounted. He later earned 'Freedom City of London, Gov. of Labuan, Commander General in Borneo, Knight Commander - Order of the Bath.' Not bad for a kid dropping out of school, not knowing where his fortunes were to be found in a brutal age.
Sultans, or rulling princes once under the supreme Caliph, survive in Asia today and other places. In Singapore several years ago we stood at the gates of the Sultan of Singapore's palace [Big as Buckingham in London] as eight Sultans came in with incredible luxury cars, horse guards on white horses, military protection for a meeting. I later asked my translator about Sultan rule. "We here never question the rights or privileges of a Sultan." OUCH! Touring the palaces and grounds of several Sultans there caught my attention and good. Private polo grounds, private rail trains, immense jewel collections etc. Seeing was believing. Hated to diverge or bore you. Well, what do I know?
R. Dale Flick
Coal Haven Landing, Ohio River, Cincinnati.
07/10/2011 11:55 am
*RE: Train speeds, 1850s.*
Hi, Nan & Steamboating colleagues:
Your question on rail speeds from St. Louis to New Orleans in/around 1855 got me to digging in junk here. Prof. Jack White up in Oxford, Ohio, no doubt would know a lot more. There are sources also on line to research finding rail museums and archives. Time depended on the company and train schedules then. There were frequent stops for freight, passengers, mail, water and fuel, frequent manual lubrication of reciprocating parts. Not all lines had on-board food service with stops at rail stations where restaurants or vendors worked the crowd. Rail lines subject to wash-outs etc. 'Average' speed in the 1850s was 15 to 20 mph with tops at 40 + mph. By the latter part of the century speed averages up to 50 - 60 mph. Archives do have schedules for the 1850s but requires a lot of digging. Rail trips then and for some years were tedious, dirty, hot or cold with delays as they rattled and jerked along. Many passengers booked 'coach' sitting up most of the way. Many complained of insect infestation on trains with lice, fleas, bed bugs in upholstery. I'll need to dig when 'sleepers' as such came along. The PULLMAN CO. went into this business in later years. Trains back then may have been faster but lacked the somewhat better creature comforts on steamboats--and even that varied greatly. I'd suggest going easy in your writing on the perception of steamboat luxury and romance.
Today's AMTRAK touts the 934 miles from Chicago to New Orleans in 19 1/2 to 20 hours when the going is good. Even by the Civil War some lines mentioned a 12 to 24 hour variance over some routes. Rough 'gestimates' would be on/around 36 to 48 hours from St. Louis to New Orleans. Jim Herron and others no doubt could nail down more details. Start clicking on internet and see what pops up. Well, what do I know?
R. Dale Flick
Coal Haven Landing, Ohio River, Cincinnati.
07/10/2011 3:16 pm
*RE: Quay/Wharf/Docks/Landings*
Hi, Nan & Steamboating colleagues:
Bob Reynolds on the money RE: quay. Quay, used universally, comes from French 'cai.' Quays differ from piers/docks usually built out from the shore being revetments of cut stone or later concrete along the shore/bank where vessels dock against port or starboard side--this similar to 'wharfs' or landings we know on our inland rivers. Our wharfs usually slanted down to the water; thus the term "going up the hill." Some old stemboat landings had nearby a kind of house or booth for the 'wharfman' or wharfmaster coming from the old term 'wharfinger.' Capt. Doc Hawley has often stated our former Cincinnati Public Landing [Strader's Wharf long ago] the finest paved, sloped wharf in the United States.
In my time the Atlantic liners docked at the quay in LeHavre, France, but a pier in Southampton, quay in Liverpool, England. It varied. Many of those classic old photos of steamboats in New Orleans also show the huge floating wood wharves against the bank with cargo piled, horses/wagons/cotton bales/bags of cotton seed. The by-product of cotton seed waste from the mills big and important then as was new seed for planting. What some of those woven wicker boxes contained a good question posed on .org a long time ago. One theory it could have been glass or china; another possibly bolts of finished dry goods.
Family friends here in Cincinnati recounted recently their old family cotton gin/sugar cane operations in Louisiana. Power supplied by wood, then coal ending with oil for the plant boilers. Any of you Mississippi River veterans recall, or still see, chimneys from the old mills along the river? Well, what do I know?
R. Dale Flick
Coal Haven Landing, Ohio River, Cincinnati.
07/10/2011 4:52 pm
I would just go with calling it a "landing' or "wharf" and, yes, they did landings and departures under their own steam. "Poling" would have been possible with something very small like a flatboat, but not any steamboat of size, at least not by hand.
Dale, I have seen gins and compresses, even some still powered by steam, but I don't recall any visible from the river. The only one I ever visited was all electric, but still impressive.
Topic starter
07/10/2011 11:24 pm
wizards
I do love you all dearly.. your enthusiasm about the subject and your generosity in sharing what you know is beyond my ability to thank.
Dale, the mystique of my slightly outlandish protagonist will necessitate some luxury.. not exactly Maverick but definite Hugh O'Brien-esque. New orleans style that is.
Nan
Topic starter
07/10/2011 11:49 pm
Re James Brook
Re James Brook
Thnovel i read was "White Rajah" by Tom Williams.
Nan
09/10/2011 5:00 pm
Railroad Capabilities in 1860
H'lo Nan.
I have copied some personal research on RRs during the Civil War that might help develop the idea of what rail travel was like in 1850. In my opinion, rail passage between St Louis and New Orleans would have been a difficult undertaking, if not practically impossible.
We take for granted the railroads of the Civil War period were much like the national transportation system of today. Nothing could be more different.
Prior to the Civil War there were approximately 200 railroads companies in the US . Two-thirds of the lines and railway miles were in the states loyal to the Union . All the locomotives, also known as steam wagons, were manufactured in the North or Europe . There was a refit facility in Birmingham , AL which miraculously kept some fifty locomotives maintained for the South during the war. And there was only one manufacturing place in the South where bent rails could be reclaimed. Bent iron rails, known as “ Sherman ’s Bowties”, were difficult to straighten. When it came to rail transportation the South was at a distinct disadvantage in the number of locomotives and rolling stock, miles of track, and the maintenance and manufacture of track, rails, locomotives, and cars.
During the Civil War years, railroad transportation meant traveling mostly in upright chairs on unheated soot filled cars that rocked and pitched their way along state imposed “standard” gauge iron track. Check out the Lincoln trip to the Cooper Union in New York City in 1860. He traveled on five different railroad systems with an occasional ferry thrown in to cross a problem river. The track gauges differed – 8.5 inches vice 10 inches. Each railroad was an independent company. At that time, many railroads terminated in towns without connection to continuing lines. Cargo would be unloaded, carted across town or farther, and then reloaded. These problems made the movement of troops and goods by rail very inefficient. Not until the Railways and Telegraph Act of January 31, 1862 were standards put in place to enable interoperability.
In the 1860s, steam locomotives could pull 8-10 passenger cars at 25 mph or 20 freight cars at 10-20 mph. Again, we take for granted that trains are multiple locomotives pulling hundreds of loaded boxcars or passenger cars. That was impossible in the 1860’s. The first railroad car that could carry fifty men was not introduced by the Pennsylvania RR until 1862. The math indicates that during the war one rail car could transport 50 men so a 10 car train could transport a maximum number of 500 men. Supplies, artillery, horses, etc required additional locomotives and rolling stock. To move an army of 20K soldiers without their equipment and supplies would require 40 locomotives and 400 passenger cars . To move their equipment and supplies would require additional locomotives and freight cars. Few RRs had that many locomotives aand cars. Few railroads had two tracks between the terminal stations so the system was usually simplex, not bidirectional. I could not find much about railroads between St Louis and New Orleans. However, I id list a few interesting links on RRs of the 1860's.
In 1861, the B&O was only 188 miles of track in 1861 and frequently disrupted:
Encyclopedia Virginia: Baltimore and Ohio Railroad During the Civil War
Also found a page on Confederate RRs. Iron U-rails were used. Limited number of steam locomotives. Railroad beds were not properly graded. For a variety of reasons the rails fell apart without direct war action - labor shortage required for maintenance, etc.
Confederate Railroads -- History, Maps & Equipment
A link to a PBS program on the Pullman car which came after the Civil War follows:
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/ame /chicago/sfeature/sf_made_07.html
Good luck.
Fran Nash
Topic starter
11/10/2011 6:25 pm
railroads
Fran, that is all fascinating and very well digested.
I wonder, how much of the scarcity was pre war and how much created by the war?
I will continue to look into all this since the story I will have in Wilde Oats is just sort of a marketing piece for the novel working title: Riverboat Gambler (bot the final title). I am thinking of having one of the two main characters a courier or legal clerk for either a railroad company or an attorney of such in Chicago. The critical years for this part is 1858-61 as both characters will eventually become soldiers.
Nan