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Post by Curtis on Nov 18, 2008 22:44:37 GMT -8
Route 30, originally dubbed the 'Mid Island Express', was served by one ship only for the first few years of its existence, and that ship was the Alberni. Route 30 became a two ship route after the QoNWM was lifted & re powered in 1991, I think? Sounds kind of odd that BCF would only have one vessel on a Major Route. (excluding Route 3) Probably one of the only cases of that if it's true. |
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Post by hwy19man on Nov 19, 2008 19:55:16 GMT -8
Route 30, originally dubbed the 'Mid Island Express', was served by one ship only for the first few years of its existence, and that ship was the Alberni. Route 30 became a two ship route after the QoNWM was lifted & re powered in 1991, I think? Sounds kind of odd that BCF would only have one vessel on a Major Route. (excluding Route 3) Probably one of the only cases of that if it's true. |
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Post by ferryfanyvr on Nov 19, 2008 22:21:15 GMT -8
the 1st year that rt 30 was in effect, the Queen of Alberni was, indeed, the only ship on the route. It was a very bare-bones service that first year....no baggage van service, and there weren't any foot passenger ticket agents on duty for the first sailing (0530) out of DB or the last sailing (2300) out of Tsawwassen....footsies had to buy their tickets at the vehicle booths...I travelled on these sailings almost every weekend that summer!!!
I believe the 2nd summer for rt 30 was when the 2 boat service was introduced. The Queen of New Westminster was still in the midst of her lifting and re-powering, so the summer started with the Queen of Coquitlam at the Tsawwassen based rt 30 vessel. When the Q of NW re-entered service in August she acted as the 3rd ship on that route (based at Tsa). Yes there was actually a period of approximately 2 weeks where rt 30 saw a 3-boat service. When Labour Day rolled around, the NW became the Tsa based rt 30 ship. After that came numerous withdrawals from service because of excessive vibration which resulted in some modifications being made to the shaft and stern. Let's hope she fares better after her latest upgrade, if it ever comes to a finish!
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Post by Hardy on Nov 20, 2008 21:06:34 GMT -8
I am pretty sure that some lessons were learned from that previous QoNW refit - having to add "tons" of steel to undo a harmonic vibration imbalance is a bit extreme, but who would have thunk it prior to it happening? I am sure that there SHOULDN'T be a similar problem, much the same as I am sure that EVERY COTTER PIN is now accounted for after refits. At least if they learn from their mistakes, then they are lessons well learned.
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Post by Hardy on Nov 20, 2008 21:11:31 GMT -8
Back momentarily to "the mid-Island Express", I can confirm what has all been posted here, regarding the QoA being the only boat on the guinea pig route and the 5-5.5 hour sailing schedule.
Duke is still very under-equipped, as I arrived there just at 1800 yesterday (missed it by THAT much) and the coffee-shop had just closed down ... both hot drink vending machines were also out of service ... 2 1/4 hours of nothing to do and no hot drinks certainly sucked last night.
Spoke to the pax ticket agent (I was soooooo bored), and she said that the day prior, she had sold $80 worth of footie tickets over the last two sailings of the evening. There IS, according to her, a plan to install internet (wireless) at the terminal for both the truck drivers (yes, the truckers, we increasingly have laptops in our trucks, you know!) as well as the staff too (their BCFS terminals are blocked from everything but the intranet -- they cannot even access the webbased RBI system to cancel/modify reservations...)
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Post by corporalrabbinoff on Nov 21, 2008 12:24:54 GMT -8
According to Garry Bannermans book, "The ships of British Columbia" the original intent for adding the second car deck on the alberni was to put her on the Langdale run. However passengers on that run complained because of her small passenger areas and the ship was replaced by another C Class. The Queen of Cowichan opperated on that run untill 1996 when the Surrey became the regular ship.
I still remember the Service notice for the night they switched boats. The last sailing from Departure Bay, Horseshoe Bay -DB and Langdale were delayed so crews could change boats.
At Horeshoe Bay the crew from the Surrey had to wait untill the Cowichan arrived and then transferred over. The Departure Bay crew sailed the Cowichan over to Departure Bay and the ship was De-stored and went in for a 3 month refitt.
Meanwhile the Queen of Oak Bay had been in for her annual refitt and was put back into service for the 9pm sailing out of DB. So there was another crew change at Departure Bay that same night.
The Queen of Coquitlam replaced the Cowichan as the #1 ship out of DB untill late June.
When the Cowichan returned she had the same decor as the Queen of Saanich.
Another reason why the Alberni was taken off the Langdale run, was that there was a increase of Commercial traffic on the Nanaimo run.
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Post by Hardy on Nov 21, 2008 19:39:40 GMT -8
Another reason why the Alberni was taken off the Langdale run, was that there was a increase of Commercial traffic on the Nanaimo run. Route-30/Mid-Island Express WAS initially marketted directly AT the trucking industry. There was intensive consultation with the BCTA (BC Trucking Assoc) prior to the launch of the route; I am not sure if there were any incentives at the time. Early BCF advertising for the "new" route prominently featured commercial trucks in the print media. |
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Post by gordon on Nov 21, 2008 22:55:40 GMT -8
BCF wants to attract passengers from Route #2 to Route#30 yet the passenger amenities on the Nanaimo end of the route are somewhat less. They have deployed The CI on the route which is good but I would assume that the customers would also like or maybe expect the same amenities at DP as there is at DB. I wonder when they plan to do a terminal upgrade there?
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Post by Hardy on Nov 23, 2008 3:16:24 GMT -8
The pax volume through DP is just not there to sustain the same amenities as the "mainline" terminals. However, they need to establish a "bare bones" service level. Having the onsite coffee stand AND both hot drink vending machines out of service at the same time was a royal pain -- mind you that is more on Ryan Vending than BCFS or the private kiosk venders. I can't ever see there being a Quay style market or anything, but a basic amount of service sure would be nice.
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Post by ferryfanyvr on Feb 20, 2009 14:40:25 GMT -8
So I found some more pics in my "archives"... March 12,1992. The Queen of Alberni had just collided with the Japanese freighter "Shinwa Maru" off Tsawwassen terminal that morning. I knew she was still tied up there so I headed over so I could take some photos (I lived in Nanaimo at the time)   |
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Post by Dane on Feb 20, 2009 16:04:29 GMT -8
Awesome, only better. Thanks for sharing.
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Post by Canucks on Feb 20, 2009 16:11:08 GMT -8
Some neat pictures. The last one made me laugh because those people look like they are dangerously close to winning a Darwin award.
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Post by Dane on Feb 20, 2009 16:15:26 GMT -8
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Post by ferryfanyvr on Feb 20, 2009 21:16:50 GMT -8
Actually that last picture in the previous post is the snack bar on the Queen of Alberni. In the late 90's, the Surrey and Oak Bay had their snack bars slightly enlarged with food selection areas located on both the right and left side as you entered. This is when the frozen yogurt machines were installed.
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Post by Dane on Feb 20, 2009 21:21:30 GMT -8
Are you talking about my pictures?
Because it couldn't be the Alberni - this was during an all route tour, but the Alberni wasn't a vessel I got on.
The other three C's had been MLU'd (Oak Bay was in North Van) so it has to be the Surrey.
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Post by ferryfanyvr on Feb 20, 2009 21:45:32 GMT -8
Sorry I don't mean to be disagreeable, but that's definitely the Alberni. To the right of the snack bar, you can see the mustardy-coloured door which served an an emergency/auxilliary exit from the inboard men's washroom and on the extreme left the stairwell up to the sundeck is visible...you can see the stainless steel handrail. Plus on the Surrey the cashier was located on the left where the cold food coolers are located on this photo. Also the area above the snack bar where the front gate rolled into when opened was plain stainless steel with black "Snack Bar" lettering on the Surrey as opposed to brown with white lettering shown here. The support pillars in the seating area are also unique to the Alberni. The ones on the Surrey had much thinner metal edges and were never painted the bergundy colour..they retained the original ugly yellow patterned cladding right up until her MLU. I don't mean to go overboard here but in the early 90's I practically lived on board both ships as I was in Nanaimo then and they were usually the ships on the final sailings back from the mainland on rtes 2 and 30 edit..here's a re-posted pic of the Surrey's very pre-MLU Snack Bar...even before being slightly enlarged. It's taken from a different angle but you can definitely see the differences:  |
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Post by Scott (Former Account) on Feb 20, 2009 22:08:10 GMT -8
Your photo is definitely from the Alberni, Dane. My photo taken prior to her MLU:  |
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Post by Dane on Feb 20, 2009 23:13:17 GMT -8
I am so very confused.... I'll go back and find my itinerary.
I also thought the last time I was on the Alberni, prior to very recently was like 10 years ago. Obviously not.
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Post by Low Light Mike on Nov 15, 2009 14:04:17 GMT -8
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Post by Low Light Mike on Nov 15, 2009 17:15:26 GMT -8
Queen of Alberni  photo from Galiano Archives. |
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Post by Low Light Mike on Nov 15, 2009 18:03:30 GMT -8
So I found some more pics in my "archives"...
Jump ahead to March 12,1992. The Queen of Alberni had just collided with the Japanese freighter "Shinwa Maru" off Tsawwassen terminal that morning. I knew she was still tied up there so I headed over so I could take some photos (I lived in Nanaimo at the time) |
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Post by Low Light Mike on Nov 15, 2009 19:09:32 GMT -8
I found another little album! Back on Friday July 29, 1988 I decided to devote an entire day to riding on all 5 C-Class ships. That season, the ship assignments were as follows: #1 DB-Queen of Surrey #2 DB-Queen of Alberni #1 HSB-Queen of Oak Bay (some things never change ;D) #2 HSB-Queen of Coquitlam #1 Langdale-Queen of Cowichan Then the next day, the ferry riding began! 8:00AM sailing Departure Bay to Horseshoe Bay:    Queen of Alberni departing HSB on her 10:00AM sailing to Departure Bay (no pickle forks yet!):  |
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Post by Retrovision on Nov 15, 2009 23:43:24 GMT -8
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Post by Retrovision on Nov 16, 2009 0:40:37 GMT -8
... Returning From a Regularly Scheduled Refit at Duke Point Terminal From Nearby Departure Bay Terminal (The first shot I was only able to capture in such low light with my old Kodak Z740 because she had just performed a 180 degree turn since she was coming from Departure Bay Terminal where she docks with the same end to the berth as at Duke Point Terminal) And here's the video clips: ...The second video probably doesn't work for you folks either, despite the message "please try again later" as if it will fix itself, so I'll re-upload it when I get the chance, just need to first delete the disfunctional clip as duplicates aren't allowed. |
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Post by Retrovision on Nov 17, 2009 23:22:17 GMT -8
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