Queen of Tsawwassen

[Koastal Karl]

Lets use this one for talk about the Tsawwassen. The past few pages on the Foot Passenger topic has been about the Tsawwassen so we'll start a new thread for her.

I see what you mean now, PRKid, that little window at the back in the forward lounge the one that has a curve they have removed that. Gee, I never noticed that until you mentioned it. The Coho has the same window. She still has her's.

Now according to the photos on the archives site, did the Queen of Sidney have those chairs when she was in service after the Burnaby came back?? I do remember that old yellow carpeting the ferries used to have. I think the last time I was on the Queen of Victoria she had that carpet. The Tsawwassen I have to say looks much nicer than the Queen of Sidney. Too bad her and the Queen of Victoria dident get to ever wear the new colors.

Looks like the front outside passenger deck at the front of the ship is more cluttered now with all those life saving things or whatever you call them

[mvQueenofnewwestminster]

I too just saw PR Kids photos (Some GREAT shots bty ) and it does look like the front is more cluttered.
I know that in this day & age of safety concern & liabilities etc. that BC Ferries are less concerned with the appearance of their ships, than their functionality. But when they start making ALL the forward windows on ALL the ships look like the Langdale/Sechelt Queen, I wonder have they gone too far? The Tsawwassen is the LAST of the original 2 ships in service now & it seems every time she goes in for refit now, more & more of her unigue design & charachter are sacraficed for modern licences.
I look at some of the old pics on my site, BritishColumbiaFerryCorporationPhotoArchives(I'm the "curator") & you could barely tell they are the same ship between when she was the M.V. Tsawwassen & today.
And remember when you could look forward to going on the Coquitlam & comming BACK, say on the Alberni? You KNEW it was going to be quite a different experience on each ship, but as of June, 2007 you won't be able to tell the difference (at least on the INSIDE) between ANY of ALL 5 ships! They will ALL have gone thru the SAME refit, with EXACTLY the same plan - heck, you ALREADY can't tell the difference between the Cowichan & the Coquitlam, unless you are standing under the name plates.
That's why it hurts me so deeply to see what they're doing to the Tsawwassen.
There. I've had my monthly rant. You know? I actually feel better - lol

-BIFF!

[Koastal Karl]

Biff, I know what you mean. The Cowichan and Coquitlam are basically the same now. Imagine if all the major vessels were S class ships or C class ships. You wouldent be able to tell the difference. That is what makes the ferries unique is each ship is or used to be different. If I rode the Naniamo ferries all the time I would get tired of going on the Cow and Coq all the time as they are basically the same now. Before you could go on the Cowichan and she was the nicer of all the C class, now her and the Coquitlam will be, with the Oak Bay following. I went over on the Cowichan the last trip then I went to Langdale and it was neat go on the Queen of Surrey as she hasent been redone yet, and was neat to be on her with her older interior. Anyone want to ride on a C class that still has the older interior go on the Queen of Surrey, cause now the Oak Bay will be done too, only other C class is the Alberni. Just like the V class, the Saanich is nicer than the Van and Esquimalt. I really liked going on the Nanny last fall as it was neat to go on another older ship I havent been on. I want to go on the Tsawwassen when she on the gulf island run. I like the older ships along with the new fancy interiors but the older interiors are nice too. The older ships or neat and it would be neat to go back in time to the 60's to see what they were like back then, if that was any way possible. Take lots of photos too because it will be the last time you will see those interiors of the ships. Now even the SOBC and SOVI will be a bit different for a while which will be neat. I am going to miss all the older ships when they are gone, so ride them as much as you can before they are gone!

[Ferryman]

Yeah I'm gonna miss those old ships too when they are sold..or scrapped-(I sure hope not). Back in the summer when Oak Bay was doing the HSB-DPB run being the #2 out of DPB, Oak Bay and Surrey always managed to be parked right beside each other when at HSB. It was even harder to compare them to each other. I remember before they both got the new colours that it was easy to tell them apart because Surrey had to pipes sticking out of her funnel and Oak Bay didn't, and now they both have them. The only way you could tell them apart if you were close by, and didn't see their name on the side, was when you looked at the passenger deck windows. Surrey has tinted windows sort of. In the daylight they always looked blue kind of like that lighter blue that's on this board now. But Cowichan and Coquitam still have one difference, well two if you're up close. Cowichan has the masive elevator room behind the Nanaimo end bridge, but Coquitlam just has a bit smaller one. But Coquitlam has more bottom car deck windows too (deck 2) but you can only notice that from a km or 2 away. I hope they make a few more than 3 Super C-Class, but I also hope they make ones like Super S-Class or something to keep it interesting like you guys said.
P.S. "mvqueenofnewwestminster" I really like your site, it's bookmarked on my computer so I check it regularly for updates, it's the best for history photos and interior photos. Everyone else's sites are cool too and I check them for updates too ;D

[Balfour]

I also used to get excited about what ship I would be on, out of Nanaimo or HB. I always liked going on the Cowichan because it was the nicest on the inside. I still schedule my trips between SB, and TSW, on what ship I want to be on. Sometimes I feel like travelling on a V class, and sometimes on a S-class. It's really too bad that BCF is amking all their ships look identical on the inside. What ever happened to ship individuality?

[Alex]

Guest-mvQueenofnewwestminster said:

I look at some of the old pics on my site, BritishColumbiaFerryCorporationPhotoArchives(I'm the "curator")

A lot of the pictures there don't show up for me. Most say "This image is currently unavailable due to maintenance. Please try again later". I was wondering if you could check that out and see what's up, because I've been looking forward to looking at the full size pics for a few months now, and the thumbnails are just teasing me.

Thanks!

[Curtis]

The same for me

[mvQueenofnewwestminster]

Yeah, unfortunately about a year ago, FOTOPIC's site had a massive crash & the result was that ALL the images at the time were lost! Imagine how bummed I was when they told me! Oh well, you get what you pay for, I guess.
I won't lie, it will take MONTHS, maybe YEARS to find, index & put all the pictures back up that fotopic lost, but in the interim, I'm happy to send my ENTIRE pic collection to whoever wants it. Just e-mail me at:
[e-mail] -OR- [e-mail] & I'd be happy to share my pics with anybody who's interested.

-cheers.
BIFF!(said with 60's Batman series hornstab in background)

[Koastal Karl]

Yeah, well I also try and schedule ferry trips on what ship I would like to go on. Living in Victoria it's nice to go on a different ship other than the Spirits all the time, like a V class, or drive up to Naniamo and take a C class across to Horseshoe Bay. Duke Point to Tsawwassen. I might be on the Queen of Vancouver tommorrow and maybe come back to Duke Point on the Esquimalt, I would prefer to go on the New West to Duke Point seeing I only been on her once and would like to go on her again. But New West's 8:15pm departure from Tsawwassen is too late to go to Duke Point then drive back to Victoria and get home at midnight. 3:15 is also way to early. 6:30 to Duke Point or 7pm to back to Swartz Bay is perfect. So I will have to see. Alot easier I and was thinking of going back up to Naniamo and going across as that would be easier going into North Van. So yeah I will have figure out what I am doing.

[Koastal Karl]

There are some new photos of the Tsawwassen at sandi.photos.de.com/

I was looking at the photos of the fire windows. They actually dont look that bad from the outside. You can actually see in one photo where that end window with the curve used to be. To me it seems the new windows are a bit smaller. But from the inside it seems the windows look a bit odd. I guess just because they are square now rather than the old curved one. The new walling they have done looks nice, now if it wasent for the black lining around the windows which make it look not that good at all. If the black was gone, around the windows I think it would make them look much newer and nicer looking. Does BC Ferries always like to make there ships look old?? Even after they put in new windows, then they always have to put some older touches back on. It's probably not a big deal, but that bugs me.

[Ferryman]

I've never been on the Tsawwassen before and I don't know if I ever will. I've seen her once leaving Tsawwassen as I was coming in on the Alberni. But I didn't really pay any attention about it because I knew basically nothing about the ferries back then, and basically all i knew was the Alberni was a double ender. But anyways I have some questions about Queen of Tsawwassen. What does her horn sound like? Does it have that awesome 3 note chord like on the V-Class seeming it is the most original ferry out of the fleet? Or is it like a typical 1 tone you hear on all of the smaller ferries? Does she rumble at the stern end like the V-Class? I shouldn't even have to ask that because she probably definitely does rumble tonz. Does her passenger deck have that smell Vancouver and Esquimalt have (old smell..possibly because of the asbestos)

[Ferryman]

Could you guys imagine if they raised and stretched Tsawwassen and Sidney? I decided to try and see, again like all of the other pictures I've tried to edit are really rough but it gives you a good idea.
Unedited Tsawwassen:
sandi.photos.de.com/p12004494.html
Edited Tsawwassen:
www.geocities.com/ferryman162000/TSA.jpg
I hope the person who runs that site doesn't mind I did that to one of their pics

[Ian]

That's cool. I wish there was a computer program were you could take ship specs and change them to make perfect pics and specs.

[Sandi]

Ferryman said:

I hope the person who runs that site doesn't mind I did that to one of their pics

I don't mind, in fact my son likes what you did with it.

[Ferryman]

Thats great! That picture is really messy though I, cut around the ferry and then raised it and then tried to make the colour of the sky around it, and then add another ramp above it. But the stretching didn't really work if u look at the bumpers on the dock.

[Curtis]

Streching whats that supposed to mean? What? Did ya put in a 84 foot midsection in.

[Ferryman]

Yeah I tried to make it look like it went though the same modifications the V-Class went through, but my paintbrush program isn't the best to use for editing pictures

[Curtis]

Ah hell. Why didn't ya keep it the same?

[Ferryman]

Because I wanted to see what a lifted and stretched Sidney class would look like ;D

[Balfour]

It might have worked years ago, but now the Tsawwassen is so old that there is no point.

[YZFNick]

I don't have any fancy image editing software. So I did a lowtech approach and lifted and stretched a sillouhette of the Tsawassen



This was made by taking the original ...


and using this one as inspiration


Try and guess what I did to the ol' Tsawassen ;D

[NMcKay]

streched, lifter, and it looks like put the oakys wheel house on it.

[Doug]

I am currently experimenting with my Photoshop program on adding a third vehicle deck to the Tsawwassen. I should have it done within the next 15 minutes. I'll post it here or on another website if it doesn't work here.

[Curtis]

That should be intresting i've always wondered what it would be like to see that way.

[Doug]

Ok, I'm done. Took a little longer than I thought because something happened to my internet when I was going to load it and I forgot about how to do things at my Webshots Website. It's fairly simple, but I could do better. Not bad for the first time. community.webshots.com/photo/288641126/288647801ubMqBe .