The SS Meteor Museum

Since there was little shipping traffic yesterday and it was my last day, I decided to head over to the SS Meteor for a tour.  The SS Meteor is an example of a whaleback ship and is the last surviving one.

 The whaleback was a designed created by Alexander McDougall who was a Scottish captain.  The design allowed for the maximum amount of cargo with a minimal amount of draft.  McDougall thought this would be a good thing for use on the Great Lakes.  The Meteor was one of the larger ones and because of design limitations, they couldn't be built larger.

 The Meteor was built by the American Barge Company of Superior, Wisconsin in 1896.  She was originally named the Frank Rockefeller because her company was bought by John Rockefeller and Frank was his brother.  She was number 36 of 44 whalebacks built by this company.  In 1900, she was sold to the Bessemer Steel Company and a year later, that fleet was bought by the Pittsburgh Steamship Company.  In 1927, she was sold as a sand barge and renamed the South Park.  She served in that role until 1933 when she was sold to be an auto carrier.  In 1942, she was converted to a tanker because of the war effort.  She sailed until 1969 when she ran aground.  Her owners decided not to repair her because she was a single hulled vessel.  In 1971, she was towed to her current location and she's served as a museum ship since.

This is a load marking.  It tells the safe draft for the vessel.  The S is for summer months and the W is for the Winter.

 A shot of her pilothouse.  This is about the only thing of the ship that doesn't seem much different than modern ships.

Looking down her hull.  She is in her last configuration.  I don't think she had this flat deck when she was first built.

One of her lifeboats.

A storage tank for fresh water.

A shot of her stack.

This is her chart room.  It was added in the 1920's.

This is a radio direction finder.  In the days before GPS, this was used to locate the ship.  Each lighthouse would send out a unique radio signal.  After locating the direction of three nearby lighthouses, the position of the ship could be plotted fairly accurately.

The view from the pilothouse.

The view of the pilothouse.  This wouldn't seem too out of place to a modern sailor.

In case of atomic attack.

The Captain's Quarters.  He had the most space of the crew.

The Captain's desk.  The machine to the right is a check embosser.

The officer's mess.  In rough seas, the crew would wet the table cloth and that would help the dishes from moving.

A shot of the oven.  The metal bars are there to keep the pans from moving in rough seas.

The crew's mess.  It's not quite as comfortable as the officer's mess but doesn't look that bad.

One of the crew's berthing spaces.  The crew was split into the different watches so that they would all be together.

There was a little airport nearby.

The gages for the engine.

A shot of the steam engine. 

A picture of a couple of whalebacks.

The Lake Superior Railroad Museum

For the past couple of years, my vacation has involved a train trip.  Since I couldn't take a train from Michigan to Duluth, I decided to use some of my miles to fly up here.  As I was looking for things to do, I found out that there was a short train trip that I could take.  So I headed over to the Railroad Museum in order to take a train trip.

 The Railroad Museum is on the site of the old depot.  There was actually a fairly nice view of downtown from there.

This is a nice classic looking depot.  The entrance was to the back of the depot.

 In front of the museum was a fairly nice N-scale set up.  I guess it gives me some inspiration for my set at home.

 I think this was a recreation of a station that used to be in Duluth.  The museum itself looked like an old town.

 An HO scale model of the ore dock.  I thought it was pretty cool that they included a ship model.

 An old steam engine.

 A shot from the front.

 An old car.

 One of the earliest diesel engines.  I believe it is called an F7.

 Another steam locomotive.

 A caboose from the old Soo Line.

 A snow plow for a train.

 A scale version of Duluth.

A real version of Duluth.

The Lake Superior Maritime Museum

Not quite where to start with today's activities, so I'll start at the beginning.  Today found me back at Canal Park because there were three ships entering Duluth in rapid succession.  I didn't want to miss any of them, so I got to the park a little early.  It was kind of a dreary day but still pretty fun.

 The Duluth Canal is maintained by the Army Corps of Engineers (like many of the waterways in the United States).   This group is part of the Detroit District (like the Soo Locks).  I think they are headquartered somewhere else in the harbor.

 A memorial to the Navy.

 A monument to the Merchant Marines.  If the Coast Guard are the red headed step children of the US military structure, I'm not sure the Merchant Marine rates that high.  In time of war, they are called upon to deliver the goods needed to fight that war.  Often times, through dangerous conditions.  I don't think they get nearly the amount of recognition they deserve.  Yes, you need warships to fight a war, but before you can build those ships, you need the materials to build them.

 An example of a Fresnel lens.

 Some steam gages.

 The steam engine from a tugboat that the Corps used to use.

 A ship builder's plate from a ship built in River Rouge, Michigan.  Hull #294 was Robert C. Stanley built during World War II for the Pittsburgh Steamship Company.  She was scrapped in Turkey in 1989.

 The Merchant Marine flag.

 An exhibit dedicated to the Edmund Fitzgerald.  This Coast Guard vessel had a submersible tethered to it.  There is a model of the Edmund Fitzgerald underneath.

 The Griffon was one of the earliest ships to sail on the Great Lakes.  She would later become of the first shipwrecks.

 The Wolverine is now the Robert S. Pierson.  I don't know why they would change such a cool name...but they did.

 The William Clay Ford's pilothouse is now at the Dossin Museum in Detroit.  She was famous for going out to search for the Edmund Fitzgerald.

 Another angle of the Wolverine.

 Even an HO scale version of the Gott is massive.

 A tugboat in front of the museum.

 You can see the museum behind the tugboat.  It kind of reminds me of the pilothouse of a classic laker.

 The stack.

The stack and pilothouse.