CP's Princess of Vancouver - photos & discussion

[Shane]

No

[NMcKay]

you can see the spot where they welded a new bow on her

[QSaanich]

Any on e got pic of the ship wen it was with BCF i have
ben looking for a pic the the ship in BCF colors for 4 years if u have a pic thay would be good if u don't thanks anyway.

[ENR3809]

Did she run Victoria-Vancouver with CP Rail? Or was it Nanaimo-Vancouver?




Tyler

[Curtis]

Nanaimo-Vancouver was where she ran during her time with CP and Powell River Comox with the Ministry of Highways and BC Ferries as for photos there were some on the British Columbia Ferry Corporation Archives but Biff was hosting that site so there not here now
Heres a photo I found while Searching Google from when she was with CP members.shaw.ca/panda.is/index.16.jpg

[Shane]

Thats a good pic.
I have one like that at home.

[7sisters]

Hi..To the best of my knowledge the "Princess of Vancouver" was never owned by BC Ferries....After it ended its days on the Nanaimo to Vancover Run it had modifications to its bow and was put on the Comox-Powell River run for awhile....My other transportation buddy has photos of her in her various stages of life...When i can get the pics of her i will post...I only rode on her once and that was in Christmas of 1968.....

[bcfcbcsscollector]

I'm surprised John H. didn't get in here. Here is a link, in the section of "Retired B.C. Ferries", on the main page of The Ferry Terminal:

www.geocities.com/ferries_bc/profiles/retired/bcf_pvancouver.html

Also, here's another:

members.shaw.ca/gcsimpson/cprfleet6.htm

Scroll down, it's the 4th ship profiled.

[Scott]

Right. The first link is my website and I have there as much detail as I've been able to gather. The period of time that I'm unsure about is between the 1985 takeover of the Ministry of Highways ocean fleet (which I'm pretty sure included the Princess of Vancouver) and her transfer by the government at a later date to the BC Steamship Company who renamed her the Vancouver Island Princess and operated her between Seattle and Victoria.

If the Princess of Vancouver was part of the Department of Transportation and Highway transfer to BC Ferries (I think Bannerman's book says that it was - although his book was published very shortly after the sale) I'm assuming the Princess of Vancouver wasn't immediately taken off the Powell River - Comox route when BC Ferries took over. But was she in service long enough to be painted in BC Ferries colors?

[Low Light Mike]

I don't have the answer for John's question, but I do have a question of my own, for those who rode the PoV in her CPR days and who remember the deck layouts.

I remember (as a kid in the 1970's) that the car deck (upper car deck, not the main trailer/rail deck) had the one side-entrance on the port side.

Please let me know if I remember this correctly, about this car deck:
- the car portion was just the middle section of this deck.
- the fore (front) portion was a seating lounge.
- the aft portion was the cafeteria.
- to walk from the cafeteria to the forward lounge, you had to walk through the car deck area?
- Between the car deck area and the cafeteria was the interior staircase: down to the rail deck, and up to the upper lounge deck.

- Does anyone remember what was in the upstairs inside lounge (on the boat-deck)? I seem to remember there being a seating lounge, similar to the Queen of New Westminster's upper-aft lounge. Was that all that passengers had access to on the boat-deck, beside the outside area?

Thanks to those who might remember those details, as mine are a bit sketchy, other than remembering running around on the main deck from the cafeteria, through the car-area, and to the forward lounge.

[Retrovision]

Some of these questions have actually been addressed in the post-2000 updated version of Robert D. Turner's book "The Pacific Princesses" that I remember reviewing a couple years ago at the Vancouver Public Library's central branch, and will be able to again once they labour dispute there is settled. I was surprised to read in the update added in the last pages of the new version that the Princess of Vancouver, as we know, had her bow lobbed off for the Comox - Powell River route and then replaced within a couple years to become the Vancouver Island Princess in a failed attempt to replace the Princess Marguerite between Victoria and Seattle.

[Northern Exploration]

As I said on another post, I used to sit in the bosses corner office when my Dad would go in to work for a few hours on Saturday mornings and watch the Vancouver load and unload. If I was lucky I would see a round trip. In between the departure and arrival of the Vancouver they would often load the train ferry. I have a slide somewhere looking down on the dock near Coal Harbour. I will try to find it sometime in my parents slides.

[WettCoast]

There is another older thread re the Princess of Vancouver.

ferriesbc.proboards20.com/index.cgi?board=qa&action=display&thread=1131563417

Lots of interesting discussion, but no photo of her in the BCF Expo livery. I am fairly certain that I have seen such a photo somewhere.

[Mill Bay]

pnwtraveler said:

As I said on another post, I used to sit in the bosses corner office when my Dad would go in to work for a few hours on Saturday mornings and watch the Vancouver load and unload. If I was lucky I would see a round trip. In between the departure and arrival of the Vancouver they would often load the train ferry. I have a slide somewhere looking down on the dock near Coal Harbour. I will try to find it sometime in my parents slides.

I was reading this, and it got me thinking, in regards to the Princess of Vancouver... she seems almost a bridge between two worlds. Almost every book I've read on railways refers to ferries that carry rail-cars as car ferries. Now we all know that a car ferry carries cars but in the same jargon, railway equipment is often also called cars.

Now we can make some distinction when we call car carrying ferries vehicle ferries, and I prefer to call rail carrying ferries rail ferries, or train ferries will work as well.

Yet, here comes the Princess of Vancouver and she carried both cars and rail-cars... So should we call her a 'rail carrying vehicle ferry', or a 'vehicle carrying rail ferry', or a 'passenger-vehicle carrying train ferry'...

I also have one picture of her that I bought a while ago... I fell in love with her as soon as I saw it. At some point, I'll try and post it somewhere.

[Scott]

wetcoastkidjst said:

There is another older thread re the Princess of Vancouver.

ferriesbc.proboards20.com/index.cgi?board=qa&action=display&thread=1131563417

Lots of interesting discussion, but no photo of her in the BCF Expo livery. I am fairly certain that I have seen such a photo somewhere.

Thanks for point that out:) It seems like we had two threads on the same topic 2 years ago too:) This one was actually started first, then Flugel went and started another one a few months later! ;D The other thread does have more information than this one, but since this one is now active, I suggest we keep the current discussion here.

[Retrovision]

From one of my favorite sources of detailed information for all that was the CPR's British Columbia Coast Steamship Service upto its 1974 Mitchell Press Limited publishing, "The Princess Story: A Century and a Half of West Coast Shipping" by Norman R. Hacking and W. Kaye Lamb (The latter half of the history written by the latter of the two authors)...

Starting on Page 304

The great event of 1955 was the arrival of a remarkable new addition to the fleet, the Princess of Vancouver. She was built on the Clyde by a shipyard that had not hitherto constructed a Princess - the Linthouse yard of Alexander Stephen & Sons. The contract had been awarded in June 1953, and the Princess was launched on March 7, 1955, by Mrs. Harry Arkel, wife of the European General Manager of the Canadian Pacific. All the main and auxiliary machinery had been installed before the launching and she was able to sail for Victoria only two months later.

In describing the vessel the Shipbuilding and Shipping Record remarked that the owners, designers and builders had "created a ship that is different." In truth she had to be different to meet the wide range of requirements the Canadian Pacific had in mind. For many years the Princess services between Vancouver and Vancouver Island had been paralleled by a train ferry service provided by tugs and barges. The new Princess was intended to supplement and perhaps in part to supersede this, as well as provide accommodation for passengers and automobiles. For guidance the C.P.R. turned to Milne, Gilmore and German, a widely known firm of naval architects in Montreal, who had designed a notable ship that resembled in some respects the new vessel they had in mind. This was the Abegweit, which since 1947 had been providing railway, automobile and passenger ferry services between Prince Edward island and the mainland. In the Abegweit, railway cars and vehicles were carried on different decks. The innovation in the Princess of Vancouver, was the provision of a single huge deck, virtually unobstructed, with rails so neatly countersunk that it could accommodate railway cars, trucks, trailers, buses or automobiles, or any combination of them that might offer. In practice it was expected that railway traffic would be handled principally at night, while vehicles would be carried on day sailings.

The ship's capacity was to be 28 freight cars, on four tracks, and this meant that she would have to be the longest and widest Princess ever built. Her length is 197.1 feet (416 feet overall) and her breadth 63.1 feet. As the vast car deck is open at the stern and therefore not included in the tonnage measurement, her gross tonnage, which otherwise would be 8000 tons or more, is only 5554 tons. To increase manoeuverability and ease of handling in close quarters she has twin rudders and a Voith-Schneider bow propeller, in an athwartship tunnel, that can provide thrust to either port or starboard, as required. As a result, in spite of her size, she can dock easily without the help of tugs.

The Princess has a raked stem, and a squared transom stern, through which vehicles are loaded and unloaded, and a long, handsome superstructure, surmounted by a single broad, squat funnel. Unlike the earlier post-war Princesses, she is a motorship. Her four 7-cylinder diesel engines, which totalled 5400 horsepower, were geared to two shafts and gave her a service speed of 15 1/2 knots. She could run on any three engines with little loss in speed, which made it possible to repair or overhaul the fourth engine without interrupting her schedule - an important consideration in a vessel that is expected to operate day and night 362 days in the year.

The Princess carried a full load of new British automobiles for delivery in Victoria when she left the Clyde on May 7, 1955. She entered service between Vancouver and Nanaimo on June 21, where her running mates were the Princess of Nanaimo and the old Princess Elaine. Each of the three Princesses on the run made three round trips each day, but during the summer months it was necessary to increase the service by adding another two round trips by other steamers. No fewer than eleven sailings in each direction were thus provided - a far cry from the days when the first little Princess Patricia was able to accommodate all comers.

[Retrovision]

tsawwassenterminal said:

From one of my favorite sources of detailed information for all that was the CPR's British Columbia Coast Steamship Service upto its 1974 Mitchell Press Limited publishing, "The Princess Story: A Century and a Half of West Coast Shipping" by Norman R. Hacking and W. Kaye Lamb (The latter half of the history written by the latter of the two authors)...

Keeping up with demand, starting from Page 319

Tyson's [Harry Tyson, CPR BCCSS Manager from 1962(?) to 1973] second move was to increase the carrying capacity of the Princess of Vancouver, on the Vancouver-Nanaimo run. A good many motorists appreciated the convenience of a departure and arrival point in downtown Vancouver, and she frequently attracted more cars than she could accommodate. In 1963, to remedy this, a large passenger lounge on the upper deck was converted into a second car deck with space for 55 vehicles. A new sunroom compensated passengers for the loss of the lounge. This sunroom was built and much other work was done in the passenger accommodation while the Princess maintained her regular schedule of three rount trips a day, which keeps her on the move more than 16 hours in every 24. A four-man team and a foreman from the Coast Service ships made 150 round trips to Nanaimo while the alterations and renovations were in progress.

A related note can be found on Page 320

The design of the Princess of Vancouver, which enabled her to carry railway cars as well as automobiles, trucks and trailers, indicated that the C.P.R. felt that the day of the car barge might be ending, and Tyson brought this about in 1964. That year Yorke & Sons completed the car ferry Greg York [ Known today as Seaspan Coastal Intermodal's Seaspan Greg ] , which began carrying C.P.R. freight cars under charter. A steel, twin-screw motorship 325 feet long, she can best be described as a large self-propelled barge. She could carry 25 railway cars on her four tracks. Four years later she was replaced by the Doris Yorke [ Known today as Seaspan Coastal Intermodal's Seaspan Doris ], similar in dimensions but fitted with an upper deck that accommodates 26 trailers.

And her specific details are given on page 346

PRINCESS OF VANCOUVER. Steel twin screw motorship. 5554 tons gross. 397.1 (416 overall) x 63.1 x 16.9 feet. 4 diesel engines geared to 2 shafts. 6300 b.h.p. Service speed 15.5 knots. Built in 1955 at Linthouse, Scotland. Re-engined in 1973 with new diesel engines of 8600 b.h.p.; service speed is raised to 17 knots.

For detailed information on what's become of the Princess of Vancouver since, see:

www.clydesite.co.uk/clydebuilt/viewship.asp?id=3696

[Low Light Mike]

Retro:

Thank you for the info on the Princess of Vangcouver. Much appreciated for the post, as well as for the effort of typing the narrative from your book.

I was happy to learn that the "upper" car deck was a later alteration to the ship. That helps to explain it's strange placement in the middle of that passenger deck.

I recall my parents saying (recently) that they knew someone who was part of the voyage when CP brought the PoV to Canada from Scotland.

ps:
- I really need to do some research on my Scotland geography. That river "Clyde" seems to be quite the center of industry, and the home to many cross-river ferry routes. Sounds like something similar to the lower Fraser or the Columbia rivers, maybe (in terms of industry and use as a transport route).

[Deleted]

There was quite a number of shipyards on the River "Clyde" in Scotland. A number of the older and retired shipyard workers served their apprenticeships in those shipyards. Housing was a problem, that's why many of them came to Canada.

[Northern Exploration]

The former Royal Yacht Britannia was built there. QE2 and the Queen Mary (now in Long Beach) were all built there. Harland and Wolff were there builders of many of the White Star line including Titanic, Oympic and Britannic. I know a bunch of the shipyards were merged but can't recall under what name and lots struggled - quite similar to our own Canadian shipyards.

[Low Light Mike]

.....I'm pretty sure that Harland & Wolff built Titanic at Belfast, Northern Ireland.

www.titanicinbelfast.com/template.aspx?pid=321&area=1


So, did Harland & Wolff also operate on the Clyde? Using the powers of St. Google (the patron-saint of curiosity), I have learned that yes, H&W did operate on the Clyde, taking over a facility in the 1920's.
tinyurl.com/3x63fm

[Ferryman]

This probably isn't very relevant to post here, but here goes...

I was cleaning up my room, and in a huge stack of papers I found this old fleet list and statistics. Unlike all of the others I have, it has the Princess of Vancouver on it. Enjoy!

Larger size: s99.photobucket.com/albums/l291/ferryman_2006/Random/?action=view¤t=File0018.jpg


Larger Size: s99.photobucket.com/albums/l291/ferryman_2006/Random/?action=view¤t=File0019.jpg

[Northern Exploration]

Sorry sloppy sentence structure on my part. The company had a shipyard there but it wasn't the shipyard that built the trio.

[Neil]

On that ship roster- Boy, their scale sure was off, as the Princess of Vancouver was actually longer than all the V/Bs. 39 boats listed- would that have been BC Ferries at it's largest roster to date?

[Scott]

Chris, thank a lot for posting that! Would you have a year for that? There's a little 6/86 on the bottom of the statistics page, so might it be 1986?