The Loss of the S.S. Milwaukee Car Ferry 

*Small correction, I misspoke saying the Manistique, Marquette and Northern R.R. "underestimated" their rail traffic. It should be overestimated. So sorry. Hey everyone, my apology for how long this video took to research and produce. I also want to make an announcement and give a shout out to two people who made this video possible. First goes to Brian Bosveld who generously provided the underwater video footage from Milwaukee's wreck. Go check out his channel for more underwater videos of Great Lakes Shipwrecks: ru-vid.com/show-UCRPs4b29AMfZL-uYiZ--r9w The second goes to Kalju Kotkas (CaljuCotcas) who made the 3D model and animation of Milwaukee featured in this video. He's made several other models and animations of ships, so go check out his channel too: ru-vid.com Some subscribers have asked me recently how they can support the channel beyond just watching my videos, leaving comments, and likes. I have set up a Patreon page for the channel at this link: www.patreon.com/railroadstreet Or if you prefer an easy one-time donation, here's a tip jar: ko-fi.com/railroadstreetmedia. Your much appreciated contributions will help me cover the costs of producing these videos. Also, check out this great 3D scan made of Milwaukee's wreck last year by Marine Imaging Technologies: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-4LAAV5w4Rug.html

Excellent narrator; superior voice with great English language and pronunciation!

The animation really brings the story to life! It was truly worth the wait. I love Great Lakes maritime history. Weather on the lakes can be savage and with ROROs especially a lot can go wrong really fast due to the design of the ship and all the open space for water to flood into. What a horrific way to go.

Clear pronunciation and levelheaded narration, it's refreshing, the English language well spoken is informative and direct, great job. Thank you.

Great video, very interesting! Too bad that there were no survivors and amazing that they didn’t have a radio.

One thing I took note of was when they dove her boiler room, the boiler caps were removed to prevent an explosion and still sitting on the cat walk. If she went down stern first would they still have been on the cat walk or would they have slide off toward the stern. It seems they knew she was going down, since they released the steam and made it to the lifeboats and wrote a note. Her replacement is like new, but she out lived the railroads.

I've been diving on the Milwaukee car ferry dozens of times. And I even dove the John V Moran this year which you mentioned in your video. Even I learned a few things I didn't know previously. Very well done!

The animation at the end really creeped me out! I have a fear of deep water & have no idea why I watch these, lol. Very interesting to see the history of these boats & how they played a part in American history. People so often don't think about the workers who make the world go 'round. Keep up the good work!

The guts the crew and captain had to have on these ships.made them a rare breed

I was trying to figure out why a railroad channel kept doing videos on ships...and it took me till this one to make the connection that, duh, they're railcar carriers. Great work documenting these vessels man, keep it up!

I am so glad you covered this topic as a kid and still to this day I love visiting the SS City of Milwaukee. During the tour they had always mentioned The Milwaukee but never anything more then the fact the captin had put a new bathtub in before the sinking.

It's astonishing how a judge found Grand Trunk liable for less than $500 for 52 souls lost although they paid out $75,000 to the families, yet they kept a 1 million dollar insurance policy on the boat itself! The good old days...

Looking forward to this channel growing. Very good content. Very high quality

amazing work!

Great video! 👍🏻

I love car ferry history, and spent time trying to locate the dock and apron location in North Port. Turns out it's now the marina in North Port. The apron was moved by barge to Frankfort and served many years on the AA as the far west apron. Unfortunately, both of AA aprons were torn out and scrapped with nothing being preserved 😥

Nice work... I watched the broadcast special of the dive that footage came from shortly after it was made.. I have a special interest in this since as a child I traveled several times on the SS Badger with my family in the late 60's and on one trip we were trapped in ice during a blizzard in the middle of the lake until we were rescued by an ice breaker. You might think I would have been terrified at the time and scarred by the experience but my memories are just the opposite. It is one of the most wonderful memories of my childhood. As the Badger heaved mightily from side to side and my parents and sisters were green with seasickness... my brother and I went to the port and starboard sides of the passenger lounge and let our hot wheels cars roll to each other as the ship rolled in the gale... I felt that ship was the safest place on earth. She still sails between Milwaukee and Ludington to this day and her sister ship the Wolverine sits on her keel in Ludington harbor.

Great video and although I had not heard of this wreck before I was instantly drawn into the story. My heart goes out to those men who perished. Tragedies like these lead to new understanding, improved saftey protocol and equipment to prevent them from happening again.

Charlevoix! Not a name you hear every day in a RU-vid video. Lol I spent a good portion of my life on Beaver Island. (the big island north of the red line at 2:14 ) So, very very familiar with that whole area.. (and the many shipwrecks)... Nasty reefs and shallows around there. And the big boats used to run close to the shore of our islands back in the day to take lee from the bad weather. The Carl D. Bradley famously went down not far from there. There have been so many wrecks in that part of the lake over the past 150 years, most are simply forgotten about. One interesting tale I remember hearing many times, as a few of my friends growing up had personally lost great grandparents, uncles etc. Was the J Oswald Boyd.. A Scottish built tanker that got stuck aground on Simmons reef in 1936. Well the Boyd was carrying, at least 20,000 gallons of gasoline. When the crew abandoned her, that gas pretty much became free for the taking. Everett Cole, the president of our ferry boat company back in those days, along with a few family members and friends. Decided to take the Islands then current ferry boat, the Marold 2, to go salvage barrels of gas. Decks loaded with 55 gallon drums, buckets, pails.. Anything that could hold gasoline. Seems crazy by today's standards... But with the price of gas these days.. I bet someone would still try...as one could imagine, this was incredibly dangerous, as all it woild take was a single spark for everything to go wrong... Well, that spark happened somehow and our fancy new big steel hull ferry boat was found twisted and in peices all over the place, and even on the deck of the boyd once the fire finally went out. The crew of 5, unsurprisingly all lost their lives in the explosion, and the island found itself suddenly without a ferry. As the lake would freeze over pretty solidly shortly after.. There still exists some very old video floating around out there, of people from the island and mainland. Having driven their cars way out to the site over the ice, STILL dangerously attempting to salvage the gas that remained post explosion/fire. Siphoning it into any container they could round up. One of those super crazy stories that's been all but completely lost to history. But still just barely lives on in the memory of Islanders who lost family. It's crazy seeing how easily history can just vanish in time. When I was a kid "the explosion" was something that happened "fifty years ago" and there were plenty of older people around who remembered the day well, who knew the men who were lost. Etc. Now here in 2023, we're coming up on 100 years since it happened. All the people who had living memory of the event, at this point all having passed away at least 20 years ago. Without the internet being a thing, those sorts of stories only live on through oral tradition, or if someone cares enough to put them down in books. Really makes me think about how many other really interesting stories we've lost, or are losing every day, as the old timers who lived in what were certainly more "adventurous" times dissappear and take the stories with them. Thankfully now we have RU-vid channels like this one, to clearly document history and forever immortalize tales which would otherwise be lost forever in the relentless march of time

Love the video!

Love your page! There's an abandoned railroad line I drive past all the time in Middlefield, OH to Warren OH

Well done, thank you.

Great narration on this one too young man. Please carry on doing what you do as you're very good at it

Charles M. Hayes, who originally founded the Grand Trunk Railroad, was also lost at sea aboard the Titanic.

Great video. I love ships and Trains. Thank you.

Fantastic story well done 👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻Robin . 🇨🇦

Very interesting, great job!

Very interesting video. I like your videos. Good research

Nice animation and texturing.

Like to find the box car loaded with "new" Nash cars.

Princess Victoria Ferry Disaster, The North Channel, Irish Sea sounds similar, the ''Spray door'' was stoved in by a massive Sea. 1953. A tragedy.

What a sad but fascinating story. They were SO CLOSE to a safe harbor. Very sad.

Nice video i really like history of the rail car ferry I actually recommend doing a video on the SS Chief Wawatam rail car ferry its my favorite ferry of the great lakes

I love the historic counts of the old ships and their tragic ends.

Great vid :) 4:09 (and earlier) you twice said 'underestimated' when you meant overestimated btw.

I remember when I was a kid Early 60 s grandad told me stories of the car ferries He sailed the lakes back in the 30 ¡ 40s Love the old Great Lakes iron

You would think the ship took on water causing it to roll and sink, once it started to list and the cargo breaks loose then it’s not long before it’s game over and happens fast...Great work, thanks 🙏🏼

I fish right next to that ship museum every year. Cool to hear the story behind it

Good video

Anyone else watching this while in Milwaukee?

Something that I have learned from watching a lot of disaster videos- never, EVER under any circumstances utter the words “last trip”. If you do then you are not coming back alive.

hey I live right by a old railroad and trolley track that run right next to each other I’m pretty sure it used to run from Sandusky Ohio to Lima Ohio it was built sometime in the 1800s and was abandoned in the 60s or 70s they’re is still a lot of the bridge’s and most of it is still there except the rails I actually farm around a lot of it and use a couple of the bridges to drive equipment across there is definitely a lot of history behind it I think it would be a pretty cool story it would be awesome to see a video made about it if you would like some pictures of it definitely let me know!

Lessons learnt from watching this channel: 1. Those car ferries are death traps in bad weather. 2. Never go on a ship with low sterns. 3. Additionally, a low rear gate is no guarantee of survival.

You could sail a lifetime and not see the worst weather that nature can produce. I've lived near the ocean my entire life and nearly drowned a couple of times. You don't cheat death on the ocean. You learn from it, and thank God.

The British Royal family was the biggest shareholder in the Canadian company. At least that's what I was lead yo believe. Spent 45 years living near Port Huron ,Michigan. At one time this city was kind of their home. It is still very prevalent in that area.

We tend to get bodies here in Kenosha because of the lake currents

At 4:47 on Jake Tran's RU-vid video "1971, the year that enslaved humanity" there is a screen shot of a newspaper of Brooklyn New York 'The Brooklyn Daily Eagle' reporting this story beneath the main headline about 'WALL ST IN PANIC AS STOCKS CRASH", Fear 52 Perished In Lake Michigan, Ferry Missing

Leaving the Milwaukee harbor when northeast winds are blowing at 40-50 mph is suicide... or murder... depending on who made the decision. Too bad the crew was forced to go along for the ride...

You never change the name of a ship

May the crew rest in peace.

It late now but just another day at work u said she sailed right at a gail storm...a lot of this stuff ive seen empty or full there are no ships made to handle the lake when she pissed..

My Grandfather and his 3 brothers all worked on the Pere Marquette .God save the Badger!

11:44 as a resident of St Joesph Michigan, i personally have never heard of how we were tied into this tragedy.

* Good vid. Though research. 👊😎👍

“Underestimated the rail traffic” what you meant to say was “overestimated” here.

I was adopted to Charlevoix at age 8. It’s gorgeous. Musta been a site on this ship going under Main Street bridge on out to brave risland

I'm guessing that the blue water on deck and unsecured cargo led to the top structure being subjected to water intrusion, if not that, the covers might have been to thin to handle a water filling the car deck from top to bottom (in that case the pressure is far far higher then weight of it). Being so flimsy thin it's more paint them steel would be the reason or passed inspection but are totally gone now.

My first apartment was in Milwaukee. :)

Too cheap to add a sea gate, too cheap to have a radio on board--nice goin', Grand Trunk!

Great video. One correction. Your pronunciation of" Pere Marquette." We Michiganders pronounce it like " Pier Marquette" its French. I toured the ship " City of Milwaukee " it was an extraordinarily fascinating. I went down into the " flicker". If was actually kinda creepy. Definitely not a place I'd want to be if the ship was going down.

It makes no sense for the Judge to use the fees owed to the boat that sank to determine it's value, but not the insurance for it's sinking.

My favorite band was GRAND FUNK RAILROAD

Liked & sub'd 👍

What happened to the Grand Haven? I grew up there and it would have been very cool to have it there...did she sink?

A seasoned Captains experiences do not always have the same outcomes (successes) when sailing a familiar route time after time, sometimes the inevitable happens, and it did. When you get right down to it, the Captain is the one who is ultimately responsible for the safety of the ship/crew/carg. Having a 5ft high gate at the stern was clearly insufficient for the job with other ships having taller gates installed is considered a contributing factor in the incident......

you should do the fp&e rail road and the inter urban service of north east ohio

My grandma's cousin Tony was on this ship. Died at only 19 years old. Where can I find any additional information? I'm finding conflicting information on the number of souls aboard. I've seen everything from 47 to 54. How can that be? Everyone's found all of this documentation, yet they can't get the number of people aboard correct? I'm going with 54. Because how terrible would it be to not even be counted if someone was there?

I love learning about history about boats that have actually sang have you ever did one about the Edmund Fitzgerald

Very interesting. I lived in the Pere Marquette area for many years and had never heard the details. Not super important for the story but pointing it out for accuracy it is actually not pronounced Pear Marquette. It is pronounced Pier Marquette.

Funny how everytime a captain want to retire, the ship sinks.

The witch of November came early.

ur videos kick ass!

RiP boys..Grand Trunk Western and the Cap pushed til it broke..😔

A ship taking her crew is always sad but may those '29 Nash automobiles know the world misses them too

The other articles in 11:40 still remind that as this has happened, the Great Depression was just kicking off.

now do you get Foggy with a 36 knot wind? you could have poor visiblity die to snow or rain but foggy conditions denote still air.

i noticed when boats get lots water inside them they sink

Another, unofficial, definition of RORO is Roll-On, Roll-Over.

No Radio in 1929? Even the Titanic 17 years earlies had ship to shore and ship to ship communication .

I wonder if that $75,000 was split between them or to each? Probably split between the 52 I would think. Not much for a life but more than most people get.

"Udder".

Absolutely criminal how the companies liability was limited to whatever garbage they could scrape off the ground but they qualify for a million dollar insurance settlement....seems to me the ship at the end of the thing was worth 1 million and that should have been paid out to the victims.

The second they brought scabs in to build they were doomed

Tedious

Dude, you gave us breakfast, lunch, dinner, and dessert in the first 30 seconds. Draw it out please.

As imposing as these ferries looked from the front, with the stern open without any gate? And as if that were not enough, they sent them sailing in bad weather, knowing the wild climate of the lakes? What little common sense. It seems that money was worth more than human life in those times.

Did you mean they over estimated their rail traffic? The actual traffic being less causing no need for the additional ships?

the judge who awarded $400, despite the million dollar insurance, was a bad person

It's good enough for a newspaper, but needs to be censored for RU-vid. RU-vid IS LAME!

Thanks nice work...gail force 9.....ok hold on according to a weather definition...a storm is 48 to 55 knot sustained winds make the term storm more dangerous then a gail force condition which i thought was weird..this is way earlier im wondering when the terms got changed i would think a gail condition sound more dagerous than just the term strom upgrade which calculate 30 mph wind increase an sustaining winds which sustained is the deadly side of it...thanks i was wondering 1900 if terms were changed for any reason...i can guess at a couple..but ill be nice

Yeah having the back door open for loading is definatley not gonna work in sept or november when the wind blows signaling get ur asses home an off my lake

In childhood sea hunter tv series. Where they find wreakage of famous series. Please check make video...in your channel

It’s pretty ruthless when not a single person survives a shipwreck of this caliber. Completely understandable, still ruthless nonetheless.

Yeah you cheat death till you don't. Then you get no more attempts. RIP.

Heavy weather bob probably was forced by grand trunk men to make that trip or they would have fired him and he would have lost his seniority and pension

Too many irrelevant informercials during this video

You can show aan 100 year old newspapaer picture cant you? Is it simply another millenial Puritan that cant handle reality?

Just a thought Maybe the train cars helped drag the vessel down if their couplers were still attached.