Photo by US Army Corps of Engineers, via Wikimedia Commons (Public domain)
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No ticketed events are currently listed for S.S. City of Milwaukee (Railroad Carferry). Many heritage operators publish schedules seasonally or run on regular open hours instead of dated events.
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About S.S. City of Milwaukee (Railroad Carferry)
Located in Manistee, the museum ships S.S. City of Milwaukee, and USCGC Acacia are open for tours, overnight stays, private events, and also feature a gift shop! The City of Milwaukee is a 360' long, 1931 railroad car ferry that serviced Lake Michigan for over 50 years. She is a
History
The SS City of Milwaukee was built in 1930 and launched in 1931 at Manitowoc, Wisconsin for the Grand Trunk Milwaukee Car Ferry Company, replacing the SS Milwaukee, which had sunk with all hands in an October 1929 gale. She is the only pre-1940s Great Lakes railroad car ferry to survive — vessels of this breed, introduced on the lakes in 1892 and numbering as many as 14 at the system's peak, hauled strings of railroad cars across stormy, ice-packed Lake Michigan year-round, often between Muskegon and Milwaukee. The ship sailed for the Grand Trunk until 1978, when, as the last of that fleet still running, she was chartered to the Ann Arbor Railroad; she worked for that road until her permanent retirement in 1982. Designated a National Historic Landmark in 1990, she is now preserved on Manistee Lake in Manistee, Michigan, owned by the nonprofit Society for the Preservation of the S.S. City of Milwaukee. Beyond daytime tours, the vessel operates seasonally as a bed and breakfast and is transformed every October into Manistee's Ghost Ship haunted attraction to raise preservation funds — all aboard the last unmodified traditional railroad carferry afloat on the lakes.
The Trains
The City of Milwaukee is herself the exhibit: a 360-foot, steel-hulled 1931 carferry with capacity for 28–30 fully loaded rail cars on a sheltered car deck laid with four pairs of rails, where carried cars were anchored by chains. Four coal-fired (later Bunker C oil) Scotch marine boilers fed two triple-expansion reciprocating steam engines of 1,350 horsepower each, turning twin four-bladed cast-steel propellers 12 feet in diameter. She retains her triple-expansion engine, original woodwork, and brass fixtures, and tours take in spaces from the pilot house and texas deck down to the engine room. The retired U.S. Coast Guard cutter Acacia is moored alongside as a second museum ship open for tours.
Nearby
Manistee sits on an isthmus between Lake Michigan and Manistee Lake in Michigan's northwestern Lower Peninsula, with the Manistee River cutting through the middle of town as it links the two. The county seat of Manistee County (population about 6,300), it grew up around sawmills, was largely destroyed in the Great Michigan Fire of 1871, and rebuilt; today it lies along US 31, one of the state's major highways, making the waterfront museum ships an easy stop.
Where to Stay
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Most heritage railroads sit well off the interstate. Picking up a rental at the nearest airport is usually the easiest way in.
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