So the other day I was talking about the Sacramento Northern (
>>1176853), which used a train ferry to cross Suisun Bay (apart from the Key System ferry which was later replaced by the Bay Bridge).
Now, I found some history on that ferry, and it's pure gold. Wall of text incoming, you have been warned.
>In 1912 the Oakland Antioch & Eastern (OA&E) railroad company (later the Sacramento Northern, then Western Pacific) submitted an application to build a railroad drawbridge from Chipps Island (south of Birds Landing) to Mallard Island (west of Pittsburg in Contra Costa County). This was to have provided a fast direct rail route from Sacramento to Oakland. The plans finally were approved after much finagling, and construction began with an estimated completion time of two and one-half years.>At the same time (1912) OA&E, in a hurry to begin service, decided to build a ferryboat and provide service while the bridge was being built. The ferry named Bridget (a pun on the words “Bridge It”) was completed in July 1913 and put into service.>Construction of the bridge stopped in May 1913 after building one pier on the Contra Costa side after the company ran out of money. Then the Bridget was destroyed by fire on May 17, 1914. It sure wasn’t a very propitious beginning.>As an interim measure, OA&E rented tugs and railcar-floats from the Santa Fe and Western Pacificrailroads to continue service while another ferry was built.
>The Lanteri Shipyard in Pittsburg built the replacement ferry, Ramon, in a hurry. In order to speed up production, it was built completely with flat- plate steel.>The Ramon was basically a rectangular barge with no keel and with propulsion at both ends. A distillate engine (for light diesel fuel oil) that was rated at an optimistic 600 horsepower, but in actuality only managed to grind out about 535 horsepower, powered the vessel. 