(erielack) Marine equipment modeling

["Paul Brezicki" <doctorpb_@_bellsouth.net>]

Yes thanks for the description, explains nicely why lighters had their own
cranes. I guess I'll have to order Flagg's books myself; they've been on my
"wish list" for some time now, but my b'day (October) and Christmas have
come and gone, and they have yet to sail into the harbor  ;-(

Paul B

Now for lighters, are you SURE you want to know? LOL!
  The term stems from "lightening" the load of a frieghter. In the early
days of the harbor, not only did the ships have a deeper draft and keel, but
the shoreline and docks were not as "manicured", for lack of a better term,
to recieve the loaded vessels without fear of them running aground. Hence,
smaller craft were designed (covered barges, open deck scows, stick barges,
hold barges, express lighters, ect.) to break down the freight car load at
the dock into or onto them, and take them out to the ship moored off shore.
As time went on, it became cheaper and more time efficent to allow the
lighters to go out to a moored vessel than to spend the time and effort (and
thus money) to dock them first. Unlike the NYC shore line, New Jersey (until
more more modern times) did not have an extensive pier system to dock large
vessels, hence the need for said lighters. As we all know, as shipping
practices changed to containerization, the system no longer made sense. Of
course, the sy!
 stem was
 a financial drain on the railroads LONG before the system itself was
outmoded, as the cost of maintaining a wooden, steam powered fleet of craft
was by no means cheap, and steel has it's own set of problems when it come
in contact with sea water of course. The reason the NY Harbor railroads had
to "stay in the game" was to remain competitive with Boston, Philly and
Baltimore in relation to the free lightage fees they offered - but that's a
whole other ball of wax to get into, but not here.

  I know I may have made some broad strokes here to explain this system, so
I hope I have not only stated it clearly, but correctly.

  Ralph Heiss


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