D'Elete BC in NJ
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Post by D'Elete BC in NJ on Oct 6, 2008 10:03:32 GMT -8
I was lucky earlier this year while travelling on the Queen of Oak Bay. While checking out the Newspaper bins looking for something to read I found this old schedual. You will be interested to note it contains the Schedual for the "Comox Express". The North Island Princess tried a scheduald service linking Comox Directly with Texada Island. As you can see it did not last long. Too see the schedual look directly beside the pictures of the Spirit class ship. i104.photobucket.com/albums/m196/shiptracker/Nic%20nacs/PIC_0142.jpgActually, I don't think the NIP ever did that triangle route. The Comox ferry would detour into Blubber Bay to drop off the Texada bound cars. As I remember, no one was picked up from Texada on the Westview bound leg, and no one was dropped off on the Little River bound leg. Scratch part of what I just said; after it rattled around in the back of my head for a bit, I'm now pretty sure this did happen albeit it was for a very short period of time due to how long it took for the NIP to make the crossing. The triangle route was much more efficient in my mind, and it, too, proved to be a non-starter. |
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Post by corporalrabbinoff on Oct 8, 2008 15:05:02 GMT -8
IT Was the NIP indeed. Would the Sidney be too big to fit into Blubber Bay?
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D'Elete BC in NJ
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Post by D'Elete BC in NJ on Oct 9, 2008 4:34:50 GMT -8
IT Was the NIP indeed. Would the Sidney be too big to fit into Blubber Bay? No, she wasn't. The triangle route I referred to above was serviced by the Comox ferry at the time...I forget if it was the Sidney at that time!  Anyways, the long and short of it is, she had no troubles servicing Texada when required and neither would the Burnaby. The quarry has a loading dock here, too. As an aside, it sucked when they discontinued this route...it made such a great side journey for the CirclePac package and I used it as an alternate travel route when visiting my family on Texada. |
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Neil
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Post by Neil on Jul 17, 2009 11:10:40 GMT -8
From a BC Ferries publication a number of years back (Passages?).  |
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Neil
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Post by Neil on Jul 23, 2009 10:45:48 GMT -8
It was forty years ago today,
Bryan Adams told the band to play...Well... probably not quite. Despite ol' Bry' telling us than in the summer of '69 he was playing 'til his fingers bled and that one of his bandmates was leaving to get married, I really doubt that he and his buds were quite that precocious. After all, he was only nine years old. Artistic license, I guess. But if you were packing up the commune on Salt Spring or the Sunshine Coast and heading to Woodstock to catch Jefferson Airplane and Ten Years After and the rest, this is how you were starting your journey that summer.    
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Post by lmtengs on Jul 23, 2009 12:09:01 GMT -8
wow. every ship but one or two is retired  |
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Post by Nickfro on Jul 23, 2009 17:05:36 GMT -8
wow. every ship but one or two is retired Ummm. . .not quite that few. Of the ferries mentioned, the Bowen Queen, Mayne Queen and Powell River Queen are all still in service. That's just from those that were actally stated in the document. The B Class ferries were in service by then, and I believe they were on Route 2. The Mill Bay was also surely doing its thing in Saanich Inlet. Boy there were a lot of sailings on each route in '69. Departures every 2 hours between Comox and Powell River! I'm assuming one of those ferries was the Comox Queen, aka Tenaka, but what was the second one? |
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WettCoast
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Post by WettCoast on Jul 23, 2009 18:13:52 GMT -8
Departures every 2 hours between Comox and Powell River! I'm assuming one of those ferries was the Comox Queen, aka Tenaka, but what was the second one? ... |
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Neil
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Post by Neil on Jul 23, 2009 18:23:44 GMT -8
wow. every ship but one or two is retired Ummm. . .not quite that few. Of the ferries mentioned, the Bowen Queen, Mayne Queen and Powell River Queen are all still in service. That's just from those that were actally stated in the document. The B Class ferries were in service by then, and I believe they were on Route 2. The Mill Bay was also surely doing its thing in Saanich Inlet. Boy there were a lot of sailings on each route in '69. Departures every 2 hours between Comox and Powell River! I'm assuming one of those ferries was the Comox Queen, aka Tenaka, but what was the second one? ...and you're right about the 'Nanaimo, 'Burnaby, and 'New Westminster on route 2. On the West Coast Steamships thread recently, I posted ferry schedules from 1931. In '31, it cost $4 to take your car from Vancouver to Victoria. By 1969, it had risen only to $5. When I grocery shop with my 94 year old mother she complains about the cost of everything. Everything has gone up so much according to her, and it does no good for me to explain that people's wages have also gone up, as has the cost of producing things. She grew up and lived much of her adult life in a time where prices simply didn't change much- a loaf of bread cost about what it did five years before, and pretty much what it would be five years hence. Inflation is a fact of life for all of us now, and it's pretty strange to think of ferry fares going up one dollar in 38 years. |
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WettCoast
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Post by WettCoast on Jul 23, 2009 18:54:02 GMT -8
Keep in mind that in the earlier time your $4 for the car took you from Vancouver Harbour to Victoria Harbour whereas, in 1969, your journey was half that distance from Swartz Bay to Tsawwassen.
In 1960, when BCF set sail, they deliberately chose their pricing to match that of the CPR's Coast Service. The rates remained the same until about 1970 in spite of significant inflation at that time.
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Neil
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Post by Neil on Dec 15, 2009 15:40:28 GMT -8
I feel like Homer Simpson.
Mmmmmmm.... schedules. My daughter's badgering me to help decorate the Christmas tree, and I'm glued to these treaures EG has unearthed. Very jealous.
Black Ball certainly had long service days, even on the Jervis Inlet route. I wonder what kind of 'dining' the Quillayute, Smokwa, and Bainbridge offered. *Sigh* Christmas calls. I'll be back.
as a P.S.... Black Ball started car ferry service to Bowen at the end of 1956, so I would be interested to see their first summer's schedule from '57.
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Post by Low Light Mike on Apr 25, 2010 13:08:24 GMT -8
From the BCF Summer 1972 schedule: Neil has already posted some of this schedule. Here are some other parts to it: ================= 20 hour cruise in summer, leaving in early afternoon each day. - on the southbound trip, you'd sleep through Bella Bella to Pine Island. - on the northbound trip, you'd sleep through Wright Sound and part of Grenville Channel.  Various discounts / savings incentives (or premium pricing, depending on how you look at it) even in 1972.  Look out for that Langdale Queen clearance.  Island Princess schedule. - I didn't realise that she was home-ported at Sointula. - Friday was the big day, with 2 trips to/from Kelsey Bay.  ----------- (thanks to the kind person who sent me this schedule  ) |
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Post by Low Light Mike on Aug 15, 2010 19:54:36 GMT -8
A question for someone who might have a late 1980's schedule handy: - There's a thread on the Bowen Island "Phorum" website, that suggests that Bowen Island's ferry route had "2 boat service" on summer weekends during 1988 or '89. It's from this thread, near the bottom of page 1: bowen-island-bc.com/forum/read.php?1,1225996,page=1 If there really was 2-boat service, and one ship was the regular Howe Sound Queen, what would the other ship have been? Something like the Nimpkish to deal with overloads? |
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Post by lmtengs on Aug 15, 2010 20:07:00 GMT -8
A question for someone who might have a late 1980's schedule handy: - There's a thread on the Bowen Island "Phorum" website, that suggests that Bowen Island's ferry route had "2 boat service" on summer weekends during 1988 or '89. It's from this thread, near the bottom of page 1: bowen-island-bc.com/forum/read.php?1,1225996,page=1 If there really was 2-boat service, and one ship was the regular Howe Sound Queen, what would the other ship have been? Something like the Nimpkish to deal with overloads? Maybe it was the 'Baldi II when she wasn't servicing Woodfibre...? |
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mrdot
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Post by mrdot on Aug 15, 2010 20:32:13 GMT -8
dear flugel, your little ditty on snug cove put me to mind of years ago when we had to operate the old ramp by hand at montague hbr. and saturna when I worked the mayne gueen way back then., that was late 60's. mr.dot.
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Post by lmtengs on Aug 15, 2010 20:37:42 GMT -8
Mrdot:
How did you operate the ramps manually? Was there a big crank-shaft attached to a series of gears? A system of pulleys?
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Neil
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Post by Neil on Aug 15, 2010 21:38:01 GMT -8
If there really was 2-boat service, and one ship was the regular Howe Sound Queen, what would the other ship have been? Something like the Nimpkish to deal with overloads? The Queen of Capilano was long established on the Bowen run by '98. There's certainly nothing in the schedule for either of those years about two boat service. When you read the quote, it makes no sense: why would BC Ferries send a boat over which couldn't dock, and had to back out to let one in that could? It will be interesting to see if anyone else on the Bowen forum posts to validate the post Mr Horn quoted. Not saying the person is wrong, but if it happened it would have been an act of extremely unusual benevolence- or extravagance- on BC Ferries' part. There also would have been nowhere to tie up a second boat at Horseshoe Bay, and it has been decades since the ferry overnighted at Snug Cove. |
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mrdot
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Post by mrdot on Aug 15, 2010 22:09:17 GMT -8
i tried to answer this query on the old ramp at montague hbr. and typed out a detailed reply and it got wiped out as i was no longer logged in. my texting skills are limited but i wil retype it for you. as you as best i can. as i recall we put a hauser ashore and then climbed a little ladder up to a locked control box which the mate had a key for, there was a control leaver to engage and other contraptions. the docking was a little less complicated at saturna, where side loading was employed and there was a little waist ramp, on the old motor princess that was kept on the mayne queen in the early days. the arrangement was a holdover from the gulf islands ferry days, before wac took them over. that brings back another old memory of wac talking to us old seamen on the car deck of the queen of saanich, would any of the new age politicans even go down to the car deck? mr.dot.
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WettCoast
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Post by WettCoast on Oct 14, 2010 21:23:45 GMT -8
One of our inactive members '7-Sisters' has recently added a lot more historical images on his photobucket site. Here is a sample that will help us all figure what ships served on each route back in 1974...  Check out his site - there is a lot of very interesting old stuff and some newer photos also. |
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Post by Mike on Oct 15, 2010 16:22:04 GMT -8
Here is a sample that will help us all figure what ships served on each route back in 1974... Back when they assigned the ships to routes serving the places they were named after. |
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Post by northwesterner on Oct 15, 2010 23:10:27 GMT -8
Interesting to note that by 1974 the Queen of the Islands was only operating for half the year...
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Post by Curtis on Oct 16, 2010 0:13:28 GMT -8
Interesting to note that by 1974 the Queen of the Islands was only operating for half the year... You also have to note that for half of the year around this time she was loaned to the Department of Highways to run the Powell River-Comox route for the Summer. Also a point of interest is that her Summer Route 9 counterpart, Sechelt Queen was redeployed to the Comox Route shortly after in 76. |
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Post by Low Light Mike on Aug 14, 2011 19:33:15 GMT -8
The display of BCFerries schedules at the Bowen Island Museum's ferry exhibit. - seen on August 13, 2011 The entire exhibit of BCF schedules:  A series of zooms:   The 1975-76 central schedule has the Queen of Surrey on the cover. Interesting that the temporary route-2 ferry got cover-girl status, long before she became the fleet's flagship.  1962 & 1963. - interesting that '62 has a new Victoria/Vancouver ship, while '63 goes back to the older Sidney/Tsawwassen original.  |
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Neil
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Post by Neil on Aug 14, 2011 21:39:00 GMT -8
Probably a good thing I couldn't get to that exhibit. I mght have mortgaged my house and my Hornby property for those schedules, and my kids wouldn't have understood.  |
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Post by Low Light Mike on Aug 14, 2011 21:45:16 GMT -8
Probably a good thing I couldn't get to that exhibit. I mght have mortgaged my house and my Hornby property for those schedules, and my kids wouldn't have understood. I was alone in the room, and the exhibit-case had no top. - I confess to picking a couple up and opening them to look at the various pages......and then putting them back where I found them. I'll post a few Black Ball schedules and a special 1977 water-taxi "strike schedule", in a few days. |
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Anyways, the long and short of it is, she had no troubles servicing Texada when required and neither would the Burnaby. The quarry has a 
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