Photo by Tony Reevy
The Nandua under tow by the Bay Tide as the tug and
carfloat make the crossing from Little Creek (Virginia Beach)
to Cape Charles, VA on the morning of June 24, 1999.
Captain Willie
Lewis guides the tug Bay Tide and the Eastern Shore
Railroad (ESHR) car barge Nandua towards the Cape Charles,
Va. float bridge. "You have to be right on the money.
You can do a lot of damage if you hit the
bridge." Lewis-known as "Captain Willie"
to his crew and to the railroad men-turns briefly towards
the others in the tug's pilothouse. "Like they say, we
don't have no brakes on here."
Lewis's job is to use the tug, which is "on the hip"-secured
to one side of the barge almost all the way at one end-to
guide the Nandua into docking position at the float
bridge. To do this, he must maneuver four slots at the docking
end of the car float against four pins protruding from the
bridge. The pins are a difficult target-just inches high and
wide.
Bay Tide Engineer Roland Washington reports from the
float's bow by radio while Deckhand George Barden waits to
lock the pins in place. The pin finally goes into the slot
on the barge's starboard side. Captain Willie pivots the barge
clockwise. The two center pins and one port pin slowly slide
into place. Barden locks the pins. Eastern Shore Assistant
Yardmaster Danny Rasmussen drops a looped cable over a cleat
at each side of the barge and winches the Nandua tightly
against the float bridge. As the Nandua and Bay
Tide started to dock, Rasmussen had also used pump controls
mounted on the float bridge to match its level with the barge's.
The barge can now be unloaded and reloaded, a process that
takes about an hour. The Bay Tide will then tow the
Nandua back to the other Eastern Shore Railroad port
facility, located in the Little Creek section of Virginia
Beach, Va.
CASSATT'S DREAM
The Eastern Shore carfloat is one of two float operations
left on the East Coast. It owes its existence to former Pennsylvania
Railroad Executive Alexander J. Cassatt and Partner William
L. Scott. They saw the operation as a way to link the Norfolk
area to the Northeast, bypassing the congested trackage through
Washington, D.C. while tapping local business from Virginia's
Eastern Shore.
Cassatt and Scott organized the New York, Philadelphia &
Norfolk Railroad to build from the existing end-of-track in
Pocomoke City, Md. to a new port created by the NYP&N,
Cape Charles. Construction was completed into Cape Charles
on October 25, 1884 and the first NYP&N passenger steamer
left Cape Charles for Norfolk two weeks later. By 1885 a new
innovation, car barges, allowed shipment of freight cars across
Chesapeake Bay between Cape Charles and Norfolk. The barges,
or floats, reportedly were designed by Cassatt.
The NYP&N was leased to the Pennsylvania Railroad in
1920. Its prosperous years ended with the Great Depression.
Passenger service was hit hardest: the passenger steamer was
discontinued in 1953 and the last passenger train from Cape
Charles ran in 1958.
The Pennsylvania became the ill-fated Penn Central in 1968.
When Conrail was formed from Penn Central and the other northeastern
bankrupts in 1976, the Pocomoke City-Cape Charles and Norfolk-area
lines were not included in the system. The Virginia &
Maryland Railroad was formed in 1977 to operate this trackage.
It was succeeded by the Eastern Shore Railroad in 1981. Freight
carfloat service has continued from 1885 to the present.
SEPARATED BY A BAY
The Eastern Shore Railroad is composed of two isolated pieces.
The largest piece is the Cape Charles Division: 62 miles of
railroad running from a Norfolk Southern (formerly Conrail)
interchange at Pocomoke City, Md. (officially "Pocomoke"
on the railroad), the entire length of Virginia's Eastern
Shore to Cape Charles, Va. There are no branches. Facilities
at Cape Charles include offices, a shop for minor repairs,
a yard office that was formerly the carfloat Nandua's
pilothouse, a receiving yard and No. 2 bridge yard. The bridge
yard serves as the staging area for the float bridge used
to load and unload the carfloat. Three of the ESHR's four
active GP10s are used for Cape Charles Division motive power,
with one of the three normally assigned as the Cape Charles
yard engine.
The Cape Charles Division runs a train from Cape Charles
to Pocomoke City and return four to five times per week. The
train leaves Cape Charles at 5:30 a.m. or so, sets off and
picks up as it goes, interchanges with Norfolk Southern in
Pocomoke City, and returns in about 12 hours. During outbound
grain season on the Eastern Shore, May-August, the train runs
six times a week. A yard crew is called to Cape Charles to
unload and load the carfloat, a one-hour process.
The Little Creek Division of the Eastern Shore Railroad consists
of a float bridge, yard and shop/office building located at
Little Creek, Va. Eight miles of track run from here past
Burton Station and Camden Heights to a terminus about a mile
west of a timetable location known as Coleman Place. From
Coleman Place, the ESHR uses Norfolk Southern trackage rights
to access mammoth Portlock Yard, the shortline's NS interchange
point. The Little Creek Division interchanges with Norfolk
& Portsmouth Belt Line and, through it, CSX at Coleman
Place. It has active on-line customers at Little Creek, between
Little Creek and Burton Station, on a stub running east from
Burton Station, and on the stub running west from Coleman
Place. The track running east from Burton Station to a terminus
at Diamond Springs Road is a tiny survivor of the old Norfolk
Southern Railway's Norfolk-Cape Henry-Virginia Beach line.
Little Creek is normally assigned one of the ESHR's GP10s.
The Little Creek Division runs five days a week with one
three-person crew. The ESHR train has a 11:00 a.m. to 1:00
p.m. window to enter Portlock Yard and must arrive during
that time period. The crew usually goes on duty at about 9:00
a.m. and is done by 4:00 p.m. They are also called to unload
and load the carfloat.
EQUIPMENT
The carfloat service uses the four-track float Nandua,
built for the Pennsylvania Railroad in 1948 by the New York
Shipbuilding Corporation as the Captain Edward Richardson.
It is 410 feet long and 52 feet wide, with a 32-car capacity.
It only docks at one end, giving the otherwise double-ended
barge a definite bow and stern. The Nandua was radically
rebuilt in the late '80s, including the removal of its pilothouse
and steering gear and a complete re-decking.
A three-track carfloat is kept in storage at Little Creek
as an alternate. It is 352 feet long and 45 feet wide, with
a 16-to-18-car capacity.
The Bay Towing Corporation is the current contractor providing
tugs for the operation. Tug assignments vary depending upon
what tugs the contractor has available at the time.
Both carfloat ports are equipped with float bridges. Each
bridge is set in the center of a slip formed by clusters of
piling. The land end of the float bridge is a pivot attached
to the ground, allowing the bridge to move up and down to
adjust for changes in water level. The bridge itself is basically
a steel single-span bridge topped with a wooden deck, tracks
and pipe railing.
The tracks set on the deck must also pivot. This is made
possible by a double-holed hinge forming a rail joint in each
rail just above the bridge's pivot point. The hinge is bolted
to the stub end of each rail in the joint and moves loosely
around each bolt, making a pivot point in the line of rail.
As mentioned above, controls along the bridge's railing operate
a pump and winches that tighten the barge to the bridge. The
single span forming the float bridge sits on top of a steel
pontoon on its water side. This watertight pontoon allows
the bridge to float, moving up and down on the pivot point
at the land end. The pontoon is mostly air-filled, of course,
but also contains some water. The pump allows ESHR personnel
to vary the water level in the pontoon, changing its floatation
and, therefore, the height of the bridge. This allows crews
to match the elevation of the float bridge with the height
of the carfloat when it docks.
Water level, of course, is dependent upon tides. Tides are
not bad on the Little Creek side, but a fully-loaded carfloat
cannot be docked at the Cape Charles float bridge during extremely
low tides. At the water end of the float bridge are the four
pins, which rest upon a manual locking mechanism and slide
through two yellow-painted, greased slots. A third slot on
the carfloat is the receptacle they lock into.
OPERATIONS
The carfloat's operation is much less predictable than the
two ESHR freight
 |
Photo from Collection of the NRHS
This photograph of Cape Charles dates to the
Pennsylvania RAilroad steam days. This line originated
as the New York, Philadelphia, and Norfolk Railroad
and later became the Norfolk Division of the Pennsylvania
RAilroad. The Pennsylvania station and tracks no longer
exist but the current day carfloat operation is on the
left side of the tracks in this photograph.
|
trains. First, it cannot float when seas are four feet or
more or when winds are 25 miles per hour or more. The direction
of wind also makes a difference-the tug and float cannot come
into Cape Charles with a wind blowing from the north or northeast
over about 13 miles an hour. Finally, the float cannot leave
unless the tug is available and is not operated until an economic
load of cars has accumulated. The 32-car, four-track carfloat
normally used is limited to 20 heavy loads of materials such
as stone or coal.
The float takes an hour to unload and load at each end, and
takes four-and-a-half to five hours to cross Chesapeake Bay.
The time for a round-trip journey is about 12 hours. The float's
26 mile crossing follows a course just west of the Chesapeake
Bay Bridge-Tunnel. The average speed of the tug/carfloat is
six knots.
Larry LeMond, president and general manager of the Eastern
Shore Railroad, says, "The carfloat is the pain of the
shortline, but you need it." LeMond has 35 years of experience
in shortline railroading-but the Eastern Shore's maritime
aspects were something new. "I knew the railroad end
of the business when I joined the Eastern Shore," LeMond
says, "but not the marine end. Floats, tides, tugs. We
rely on Captain Willie. If he says not to go out, we don't
go out." When business is good and the weather is bad,
cars can build up in both the Little Creek and Cape Charles
yards. Fortunately, the usual bad weather season-December
to March-doesn't coincide with the May to August grain rush.
"Most of our customers," LeMond says, "understand
our situation. They're willing to wait for the weather to
settle when we've had a bad spell."
Northbound, the carfloat carries mostly coal, soy meal, stone,
chemicals, cement, soy oil and empties. The stone and cement
are usually destined for Eastern Shore consignee's. Southbound,
the carfloat carries more empties than loads. Empties are
generally stone and coal hoppers. Southbound loads are mostly
various grains. The carfloat operation carries about 7,000
cars annually. Traffic is balanced, with about 3,500 cars
being carried in each direction.
"We provide the only rail supply," LeMond notes,
"for Virginia's Eastern Shore." This means that
materials not economically trucked-such as stone, coal and
grain-going to or from that section of the Eastern Shore are
carried by the ESHR. Many of them end up going northbound
or southbound on the carfloat.
Even so, overhead traffic is crucial to the float operation's
survival. "About 50 percent of the cars carried on the
float," LeMond says, "is overhead traffic bypassing
much of the Northeast Corridor. It's our lifeline."
"During the May to August grain season," LeMond
continues, "we often run the car float 24 hours a day,
six days a week. At other times, floating depends upon the
traffic. We do our own maintenance on the float, shutting
it down for five to ten days every year during a window when
we can expect light traffic."
Photo by Russell Underwood
Eastern Shore Tug Mary Jane is in the process of positioning
a carfloat for unloading at Cape Charles, VA on January 4,
1986.
