Loading a Coal Train onto a Cargo Ship 

Wherever you choose to film next, just keep to the format of all commentary and birds with no crappy music and I will keep watching.

This very impressive operation (built in the 30's) is pretty much immune to cyberattack. Sometimes, old technology is more robust than the latest cutting-edge, computer-driven techniques. You're commentary and drone/video work is superb! Thanks for it!

81 years old and still a jewel. Amazing video, sir.

Those types of rail cars were in use when I sailed the Lakes in the late 70s. Visited that same dock many times. The unloading boom on the Tregurtha is 260 feet. With her 75 foot beam, the Tregurtha can dump her load over 200 feet from the boat!

Just so pleasant to watch. Informative, yet free from silly music. Calm and nice!

I like Great Lake Freighters, and I Really Like Trains. These are where the two come together.

My grandfather was a skipper on the bulk freighters in 30s and 40s, retired in 55. Loved visiting him on his ships.

I really like this video, it goes to show that with all the tech going, analogue old school stuff still works well, many thanks

very interesting and we now have a complete picture of how the unloading and ship loading works, thanks for making the video and sharing

It's amazing how long maritime machines and ships last when they work around fresh water. I love the footage of this dock in action. It's satisfying to watch this ballet of railcars and freighter that's worked for almost a century.

Wow, what a view, with great narration, very cool production, thank you! Fantastic work! (Dave).

The ship is moved via two winches that the mooring lines run through. One winch heaves, one plays out and so on depending on which direction the ship needs to scoot.

@17:05 - That large sheave with all the cables hoists that whole boom. I think that each turn of the sheave equated to about 10K pounds or at least it did on our yard crane. What a mechanism.

dude, what a fabulous education on how this works. loved all the dubbed in info, and definitely the 4k footage. SO GOOD!

That is some cool stuff, with amazing shots! Thanks for sharing with us all.

A Coal Car can weigh 100 to 120 ton fully loaded with a load of up to 25 tons dependent on size/height/length/design of car. Remember not all coal weighs the same. So it could be off by a few tons. I lived there and had relatives that worked here. I explored this extensively in my youth. Even worked here for a summer job. So I hope this helps. Also cars have become lighter using thinner materials so therefor allowing larger capacity.

Very informative, indeed. Thanks so much for this additonal video at the coal dock. I love this kind of stuff. Cheers from Wisconsin!

Absolutely phenomenal video. Thanks for sharing!!! 😃👍

That was fascinating. Next time I see her coming in through the Duluth Ship Canal, I'll know way more about her. Thank you!

In the "Know Your Ships" book (consider getting one) she is listed as a Self-Unloader (SU), which is also evidenced by the 250 foot long unloading boom. All Self-Unloaders have an internal "hopper like" structure (vaguely V-shaped along the axis of the ship) to guide the load in the hold down to the central unloading belt, which pulls the bulk cargo back towards the base of the boom where other machinery lifts the bulk cargo up onto the boom to be expelled at the unloading destination. Because all of the bulk load needs to be carried by the unloading belt at the bottom of the hold space, even if each loading hatch opened into a separate compartment they are all open to the bottom any way to allow Self-Unloading. Not all bulk carriers are self-unloaders, but that is the trend. I am pretty sure that in this case that is all one big bulk cargo area. The hartches are only big enough to fit the old "Hulett" style unloader, Hulett unloaders were high tech in their day but are now completely obsolete and you would be hard pressed to find even one still in operation.. The bigger you make the hatches, the weaker they get unless you made them very strong, which would add too much weight, so their size has been standardized Not being an expert Boat Nerd (I am a junior boat nerd in training, a JeBNIT), I do not know all of the precise terms for all of these things, but I think I have explained the basic idea pretty well. Nice video footage, thanks for posting. If you like to learn about Great Lakes boats check ouy this channel: www.youtube.com/@authorwes

Shorty Parker built a working model of this coal dumper in HO Scale. It's just as impressive as the real one. :)

Excellent video. I thoroughly enjoyed seeing the process! Thank you. 😊😊😊😊😊

Man oh man. I grew up in the Toledo area, and was a cop at Cedar Point in 2003. I know the area and those waters really well - spent a lot of time out there. Great drone footage and wonderfully narrated - excellent job!

Great job! Very interesting and super Drone shots!!

Your content is really, really good. It's not remotely close to what I normally watch, but I am certainly glad that RU-vid saw fit to show me the first video.

Thank your so much information about days before computer controllers, more videos will be nice. TOM from Nh

Excellent video, well done.

Great job, great video, thanks for sharing

She’s a beautiful veteran ship. And unfortunately this is the last season for the Algoma Transport she will be permanently retired (scrapped) mainly because hauling salt shortened her life span 😢 It will be sad to see her go. Thank you for sharing this video. 😊

Great job making this video. 👍👍👍 One of the best videos explaining how the whole process works for loading coal onto the ships 🚢. Also Great overview of the dock and the views of the transfer loading tower. Most coal gons are weight rated at 286,000 pounds. Load capacity 116 tons, or 232,000 pounds.

Great video. If you want to get into a rabbit hole, look into tours of the laker ships. They show much of the ships including the conveyers, estate rooms, engine rooms & etc..

I watched that operation once many years ago from a fishing boat. It was neat to see the cars roll down the hill after being emptied.

The sister ship, MV Paul R. Tregurtha, I believe operates in the same way. That ship was featured in the series Mighty Ships Season 1 Episode 5 - should answer a lot of the questions about how these ships work.

The bays on the ship are 24' on center, this is because the loading chutes at the Iron Ore docks on Lake Superior are spaced at that distance because the Iron Ore cars are that length due to Iron Ore being much heavier than coal. Five separate holds is the most common on older ships, though the Lee A. Tregurtha might be different due to being lengthened a second time. The steel mill is located in Detroit, at Marquette, MI it will load Iron Ore pellets, probably for the same steel mill.

YT suggested this video to me, but I almost skipped it. I'm glad that I watched it, as it was very interesting and very well done 👍 It was interesting to see where Cedar Point is situated. All of it's steel supports for their amazing 'coasters and rides looks industrial from the distance, making it fit right in with it's neighbors. I have now subscribed to this channel.

Thanks for a great informative video. Appreciate your work.

Excellent, Excellent!

Thank you interesting to watch from an ex British Seaman

This was such a great video and very educational. I hope coal comes back as a source of energy like it was years ago.

Wow great video! A good friend of mine sails on the M/V Herbert C. Jackson of Interlake Steamship Co. and he has loaded in Sandusky a few times under his watch. It’s a slight pain as they have to move the ship and it takes along time. A lot of loaders on the lakes can move themselves to load the ship much faster but it is very cool they are still loading the ships like they did in the 1900s! Adding to what you said about the pilot house placement in the 1970s it started to become too expensive to build vessels with a forward pilot house so they started building all accommodations aft. Also the reason there is no smoke when they are moving is because the movement is fully controlled by the winches and usually the the propeller isn’t even used.

Another great video of Sandusky. Thank you!

Great shots of the dock loading operation! Been at that dock and on that vessel, and that loader is probably the most interesting on the Great Lakes! If someone hasn't already commented, the ships' crew moves it via their mooring whiches forward and aft; no engines required. The crew onboard of either end of the boat is operating the winches and vessel shifting. This particular boat has 5 cargo holds and 24 hatches (4-5 hatches per cargo hold) and uses the "2 belt" method to squeeze and bring material to its boom. The CSX coal loading dock in Toledo is also a interesting rail dock... you could also capture ship's loading from rail cars and unloading there, too.

Great video...very interesting

We had fun watching your drone coverage! A fantastic and informative video! We’ve been watching these ships coming and going for quite some time. Now we know what they haul and how their ships are loaded! Thank You !!!! Wishing you and yours a “Merry Christmas” ahead of time! 😁😁

Damn geese, everyone’s a critic. Oh yep, gulls too heh. Great video though, thanks for posting this stuff goes from really cool to incredible when we see the massive intricacies actually working. 🤯👏🏻

Very cool.

Thanks for the interesting topic. Who knew it would be fun to watch a ship being loaded.

Thanks for sharing this video. Very informative and interesting.

Front pilot house ships are old classics, my favorite. Rear pilot house are the newer. Bow thrusters keep the ship close to the dock. There is a round marking on the side of the ship to show where the are located. She is 826 feet long.

Best videos I’ve seen yet. Keep up the wonderfully edited clips👍👍👍

Another fascinating video. Thanks.

Well done!😊😊😊

Loading a ship such as this is a complex and criticality important process. When arriving empty to be loaded the ship will often have some ballast water that was needed to maintain her stability when traveling light in open waters that will be released when she is being loaded with cargo. When being loaded, especially a bulk carrier such as this, the loading must be specifically spread out thru the ship both in timing and amounts so as her structural integrity and stability not to be compromised. Too much in the mid ships section at one time could break her back. Too much at one end or other with center section still mostly empty could cause her to sag at bow or stern putting undue stress on her hull. Ocean going ships especially will have what is known as Plimsol markings on their hull to show how deep a ship can be loaded safely in all conditions (salt water, freshwater, winter, summer, and even a I believe a special "North Atlantic Winter" designation).

Great content! Thank you!🇺🇸

Interesting video, thanks.

Your video was great, maybe, just maybe, the best filmed industrial video i have ever seen, quad copter skills are incredible, and makes for a great video as well, narration is exceptional as well, going looking for other videos you have made now.

Excellent documentary. I was surprised it was built so long ago and will probably go on a good number of years, unlike modern things that don't seem to be built to last I guess that took up a whole day to film so thanks for the effort you put in to make and edit it all.

Nice video. I would love to see any other industry served by the railroad that you can get your drone over for this type of coverage. Papermill. Steel mill. Automotive plant, shingle plant, etc. great video thx for sharing.

Thank you very much for this very informative video, Really enjoyed, it. Have a Blessed Night.

Foaming meets gongoozling, I'm hooked! A few more shots of that crazy "ski-jump" for the rail cars would have been cool.

In coal barge unloading docks we use barge haul system of wire rope and winches driven by electric motors. The crane operator moves the barge left/right using a spool on each end of the dock. By the looks on what was going on with the deckhands shifting cables around, they may have a similar system but the winches are on the ship and not on the dock, so the captain does not move the ship, the deckhands do. Oh, and that was not all smoke, most is steam. Steam dissipates into the air very quickly, smoke continues a long distance before eventually dissipating. Good video, thanks!

Really enjoyed watching this video. Great capture of the process. I like ships and trains. Hope that's some low sulfur coal from Wyoming. I live close to some coal mines here. Have a good day, sir.

Amazing stuff, i did find it slightly amusing that despite all this massive machinery, and huge amounts of coal, there's still a guy with a rake moving a tiny amount of it to 'level it off'! And i mean this in the nicest manner. A cracking video and thank you for your time creating and uploading for our pleasure.

The Lee Tregurtha is (obviously!) an old-style laker, with the bridge and wheelhouse at the bow. It also has a "steering pole"" at the point of the bow - whose function is also obvious! From the '70's (I think) laker design was changed, withe bridge, wheelhouse and accommodation all being located at the stern - and the ""steering pole"" being removed. Although this ship is 80+ years old, I suspect it has had several changes of motive power - marine diesel engines do not last forever, even in fresh water. I visited Cedar Point in 2017, but the season had finished and everything was closed. I missed the coal dock - I did not realise it was there - but i had a wonderful lakeside lunch at Port Clinton. Thanks for the video.

Outstanding video. Very enjoyable to watch!

Forward pilothouse ships are not common any more. The spear like projection helps the caption steer as it shows the angle of the ship. He/she lines it up with something in the distance.

Absolutely awesome! An amazing video! Kudos!

This is fascinating, I just visited the decommissioned McMyler Coal Dumper in port reading NJ. It was amazing to explore up close. awesome ingenuity. Thanks for the video !

After watching this I now realise how backwards we have gone in our railway system in South Africa. Today we have hundreds of road trucks waiting at our main coal export harbour for days to unload coal.

Great video thank you.

That ship is huge! What a ship!!!

A great improvenet on the old days of coaling a ship

Very informative. Grand scale of operations. Thank you!! Roji

The Lee A is shifted via line and wench at the dock. Deckhands will go ashore and haul lines fore and aft to reset. The Lee has multiple cargo holds sectioned off by bulk heads. She is an amazing boat with a great crew. I miss being onboard daily.

I was board a Liberty ship that tied up to coal in Newport News VA in the early 1950s. We took10k tons of coal aboard overnight. The process was almost exactly the same except that the hoppers cars moved by gravity alone.

Cool.

Glad I stumbled upon this show! Great job in presentation! Thanks!!

Thank you so much. Great footage.

Thank you for making this video.

Nice video, thank you! Great format, great lenses, no music, just right! Of course I now wonder… chucking the coal in is comparatively easy - getting it out must be messier :)

What an amazing video. Ive always wondered how this all works. Thank you so much

If you really want to get scale size of these ships, Go to Sauit Ste Marie locks and watch them pass through They pass within 50 ft. of the observation area.

I'd leave my desk job to work here. Always loved industry like this. Now I can only watch on my lunchbreak

Great video and thank you. Very interesting!

Fascinating! Thank you! I enjoy watching this ship come and go from the port at Duluth, MN.

I have worked in the gas and oil fields of Pennsylvania Ohio W.Va. Coal mine trucks all over. Over on the Ohio river, Coal trucking was hot until a few years ago. I always wondered where those Norfolk Sothern cars/gondolas! Were going! Thanks!

Cool video! Great footage!

Awesome video of some pretty awesome materials handling, designed and built decades ago. Most informative, so thanks . .

This is the first video of yours that I have watched. Very well thought out, and professionally done! I will definitely be back for more!

This is really cool... and a lot cleaner than I thought it would be.

well done ! keep up the great footage.

A most enjoyable watch, thank you for your efforts.

Thanks for the video! I am a boat nerd and spend a lot of time watching the freighters. It was great watching this perspective, and your video and commentary was great!

Great video. Much detail. Excellent use of the drone.

German here, we went to the lake to see the eclipse, and ended up sitting on a pile of rocks at Cedar Point road, that's behind the fun park seen in the end here. I knew about the industry, but totally missed this place, and now this showed up in my feed. Got a video on my channel showing the view over the lake during the eclipse.

First-class production! I learned a lot. Thank you.

I believe the ship is moved along the length of the dock using winches on the moorings lines vs. the ship's engines - hence why no exhaust smoke.

Just watched this for the second or third time. This has to be one of your best videos. Great drone work as usual, lots of good information and highly educational. What a feat of engineering, I would love to see it in person. Thanks to this video I feel like I’m really there. Thanks as always for a great post Christian.

I actually just delivered a 858 train to Sandusky yesterday afternoon and was thinking about how I’d seen a video of this place before 😂

Amazing! Great quality production😊. Thanks for making this :-)