On November 27, 1892, the Ann Arbor Railroad pioneered cross-lake car ferry service when it launched Ann Arbor Car Ferry#1 from Kewaunee, WI to Elberta, MI with a load of 22 boxcars laden with flour bound for Scotland, Ireland, and England. Bypassing the congestion and delays of Chicago rail yards, the Lake Michigan crossing took roughly 4-5 hours, as opposed to the 4-5 days (or more) that it took to get freight through the bottleneck of the Windy City. As soon as the first sailings were successful, additional boats were constructed, with the Ann Arbor ultimately commissioning a fleet of seven car ferries.

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I will not steal all of the thunder of other voluminous​ and likely much more accurate writings on the car ferries, but a brief summary to explain my modeling is appropriate as follows: original ferries were constructed of wood hulls and powered by steam engines with no sea-gates (the moveable "wall" at the stern of the ship to keep rail cars from rolling out in rough water). As that description implies, the railroad did lose cars into the lake before sea gates were invented! And as technology and construction methods improved, later boats all had sea gates and were constructed of steel and ultimately powered by diesel.

 

As my N Scale Ann Arbor spans from the 1920s to 1980/1981 I decided to build two versions of the same boat: Ann Arbor #6 was built as a steam-powered ferry in 1917 but then split, rebuilt, re-powered to diesel, and lengthened in 1958-1959 as the Arthur K. Atkinson. See photo and diagram of the prototype car ferry above right.​​​​​​​​​​

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I found an on-line N Scale shipbuilder and commissioned my own Arthur K. Atkinson (see third image) and all the parts needed to build the original Ann Arbor #6. I will post updated photos and notes on my progress over the next several months as I find (make) time to build out the rest of my car ferry infrastructure. Links will be added below for Ann Arbor #6 and the ferry aprons as I'm able.