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Post by Rod Smelser on May 6, 2008 13:54:42 GMT -8
Wow, beautiful photos ... the sun at that time of the day makes everything look great, even with rust stains:) Well, I suppose there's art in pictures of disaster, eh? It's a sad ending, an act of public vandalism really, and one that I think shows a real lack of a sense of history and opportunity on the part of the Ferry Corp and the BC Govt. These orginal vessels, Sidney and Tsawwassen, have a charm and features like promenade decks that the newer vessels cannot equal. Selling them off for scrap or to some other country shows a serious lack of imagination, and is probably driven more by a desire to reposition the corporation in the public's mind than by any serious financial consideration. Specifically, elimating any reminders of the company's locally constructed heritage seems to be critical to the current "business" agenda. |
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Post by Retrovision on May 6, 2008 13:56:57 GMT -8
Wow, beautiful photos ... the sun at that time of the day makes everything look great, even with rust stains:) Well, I suppose there's art in pictures of disaster, eh? It's a sad ending, an act of public vandalism really, and one that I think shows a real lack of a sense of history and opportunity on the part of the Ferry Corp and the BC Govt. These orginal vessels, Sidney and Tsawwassen, have a charm and features like promenade decks that the newer vessels cannot equal. Selling them off for scrap or to some other country shows a serious lack of imagination, and is probably driven more by a desire to reposition the corporation in the public's mind than by any serious financial consideration. Specifically, elimating any reminders of the company's locally constructed heritage seems to be critical to the current "business" agenda. |
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Koastal Karl
Voyager 
Been on every BC Ferry now!!!!!
Posts: 7,747
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Post by Koastal Karl on May 24, 2008 11:49:31 GMT -8
Mill Bay where did you take those photos from of the Sidney from across the river??? Is it easy to get to??? I wouldent mind checking out the spot next time I am in Vancouver.
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Mill Bay
Voyager
Long Suffering Bosun
Posts: 2,887 
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Post by Mill Bay on May 24, 2008 21:49:14 GMT -8
Mill Bay where did you take those photos from of the Sidney from across the river??? Is it easy to get to??? I wouldent mind checking out the spot next time I am in Vancouver. Karl... it is easy enough to get to, but you need to know your way around the rural roads of the Fraser Valley. I only had a general idea of where I was going in the first place, and I wasn't expecting what I found. Also, it was off the end of a road, so it required a fairly long walk once I'd parked my car. The problem is, right now with the river levels so high, you would not be able to get to that exact spot. I have no notion if it is private property, but where i was standing is probably underwater right now, so I guess the river owns it. I think I saw a GVRD regional parks sign at the access road, but I think it is for access to the CP Rail line as well. Basically, once you drive as far as you can east of Ft Langley on River Road, you reach a turnaround with a gate, beyond which is an access road that you'll have to walk on. (You might also want to try the rail grade itself, but that is definitely private property and you never know when a train will come.) And in regards to the comment above about throwing away our heritage, that's been mentioned before a lot on this forum, and I think it's more a result of the disposable consumer society that we have created for ourselves here. |
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Post by WettCoast on May 30, 2008 22:38:21 GMT -8
Queen of Sidney, c 1977. She appears to be backing out of Tsawwassen terminal, and has a good passenger load by the looks of things. I have no idea of why the flags... The photo is scanned from my brother's negative collection. He took the picture. He once worked as a deck hand on the Sidney when she was based out of Swartz Bay doing supplementary route 1 sailings with Gulf Island calls.  DOT photo ©
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Deleted
Deleted Member
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Post by Deleted on May 31, 2008 7:01:54 GMT -8
Wow west coast kid do you know where the scrape came from or is it just a unusally large scrape.
note: you can see the platting on the inside of the car deck.
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Mill Bay
Voyager
Long Suffering Bosun
Posts: 2,887
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Post by Mill Bay on May 31, 2008 10:57:58 GMT -8
New link found to the Flickr photo stream of one Greg Vernon (these are his photos so do not misuse them...) who has included in his collection 2 nice shots of the QofSidney approaching Little River terminal, as well as a classic shot of the stern sundeck of the Tsawwassen on the Earl's Cove route with the originial wooden benches still aboard. www.flickr.com/photos/greg_vernon/sets/72157602577591601/ |
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Post by rozkrok on Jul 18, 2008 18:57:31 GMT -8
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Post by Scott on Jul 18, 2008 21:59:28 GMT -8
Thanks for that very informative article. Puts a lot of the stories we've heard all in one place.
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Post by Ferryman on Jul 18, 2008 22:01:08 GMT -8
rozkrok, I remember reading that article you wrote, as a newspaper clipping that a friend of ours cut out for us to read as we were sailing aboard the Queen of Tsawwassen. We all appreciate your efforts to try and spread the word of what has happened with the Queen of Sidney. Although, the general public don't look at it the same way us Ferry fanatics do and at this point, it is time to send her to the breakers. I went out there to see her several weeks ago, and she just keeps looking worse and worse, especially with the SS San Mateo now listing and leaning on the side of her. Such a sad sight. I'm also surprised that no evironmental officials have caught on to this either, because I'm sure there's oil and other pollutants leaking from the ships, expecially from the SS San Mateo. PS: Thanks for acknowledging my videos of the Sidney on youtube, in your article  . |
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Post by EGfleet on Jul 19, 2008 14:22:54 GMT -8
I'm also surprised that no environmental officials have caught on to this either, because I'm sure there's oil and other pollutants leaking from the ships, especially from the SS San Mateo. Any potential pollutants from the San Mateo (oil, fuel, etc) should have been removed long ago after she was retired and turned over to Northwest Seaport. However, that does not mean she isn't covered with layers of lead paint and I suspect that there is likely asbestos in the engine room. I'm not sure what stipulations, if any, Canada made before she was towed up the river, but other than the possibility of those two items mentioned, there shouldn't be anything left on board. |
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Doug
Voyager
Lurking within...the car deck.
Posts: 2,213
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Post by Doug on Feb 7, 2009 22:12:08 GMT -8
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FNS
Voyager
The Empire Builder train of yesteryear in HO scale
Posts: 4,956
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Post by FNS on Feb 7, 2009 23:55:05 GMT -8
I have courteously resized his photo of the QUEEN OF SIDNEY to the regulation 800 max.  |
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Post by Mike C on Feb 14, 2009 11:14:07 GMT -8
oh god, I can't bear to look at these photos anymore....  |
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Post by Barnacle on Feb 15, 2009 8:57:14 GMT -8
It's even worse if you happen to be a fan of the San Mateo.
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Post by Taxman on Feb 15, 2009 11:20:35 GMT -8
The sad thing is, despite her rust and the fact she is a shell of her former self, I still think the sidney class was the best looking of the fleet.
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Post by Ferryman on Feb 20, 2009 16:23:50 GMT -8
A random surprise showed up at my school today. Queen of Sidney's #5 lifeboat was dropped off from a flat deck truck this morning. I took a good look at it today, and am surprised that anyone would even consider giving it a second life - it's in bad shape. But it looks like it will be refurbished over the next few days to be used on the training gravity davit setup in the pool.
So if your trying to figure out which lifeboat it would be in your photos, since it's numbered "5", that tells you it was on the starboard side because it's an odd number. The Sidney and Tsawwassen originally had 6 lifeboats, so this one was once placed on the starboard side, closest to the stern. If anyone from the Queen of Sidney tour in 2005 remembers the lifeboat with the small outboard engine on the stern, this is the one.
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Post by Ferryman on Feb 26, 2009 21:28:07 GMT -8
Just to follow up on what I said last week, here's some pics to go along with it. Here's the Sidneys #5 lifeboat starting a new life with deckhands in training at the Western Maritime Institute.  This is where it will end up in a few more weeks while construction still progresses on campus.  |
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Post by EGfleet on Mar 11, 2009 18:19:58 GMT -8
I just saw a quick advert on the SciFi channel for a movie called Sea Beast which is set to debut this Saturday and it looked as if part of it was filmed on/near the the Sidney. I'll be sure to watch for it again, but it sure looked like the Sidney from the brief look I got. **update** It does indeed appear to feature the back end of the Sidney.  |
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Doug
Voyager
Lurking within...the car deck.
Posts: 2,213
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Post by Doug on Mar 11, 2009 21:11:24 GMT -8
Sea Beast? Sounds like an LB
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Koastal Karl
Voyager
Been on every BC Ferry now!!!!!
Posts: 7,747
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Post by Koastal Karl on Mar 11, 2009 21:14:22 GMT -8
I thought I saw something on TV once somewhere that was filmed on the Sidney. Has it been on TV before?? I saw it somewhere!
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Post by EGfleet on Mar 15, 2009 9:33:11 GMT -8
Okay, so Sea Beast was on last night and it was your typical Alien style film, though set here on earth (Oregon, allegedly, though it was pretty clear that 99% of it was filmed in B.C.), with some fairly good CGI effects for what was obviously a low-budget monster flick. That being said, while not entirely painful to watch, the best parts were in the last half hour or so when the Q of S did appear. For the sake of the plot, she was an abandoned ferry where the girl-in-peril's father used to work as a kid, implying that said boat has been there at least a good 20 years. Here's our girl-in-peril with token boyfriend. Token boyfriend gets eaten by the Sea Beast late in the game.  Looking for flares because as everyone knows, those always stay perfectly usable after being abandoned near salt water for decades.  "Why goodness, here's some right in front of me!"  A nice scene establishing shot.  And because abandoned buildings, ferries, or what have you are ALWAYS the lair of the creature, here comes Mama Sea Beast, who has been using the engine room of the Sidney for a little nursery.  Looking for a safe place to hide.  So after hapless boyfriend gets et, Pop arrives to the rescue. Some handy acetylene tanks and a conveniently abandoned Mercedes give Pop an idea to destroy said creature and its young once and for all.  The creature approaches the trap! (Note hole in car deck.) All does not go without a hitch, of course, as the sea beast uses its 30 FOOT LONG RETRACTABLE TONGUE! to snag Pop by the ankle. He uses his cigar to burn the tongue of the sea beast, letting him go just as things go kablooey!  And of course it wouldn't be a proper creature flick without blowing up the lair. Poor Queen of Sidney...  And after the explosion, the ferry continues to burn, thus fully eradicating the sea beast.  Pop has of course managed to jump off the boat (this is not shown on camera, of course) and girl-in-peril who seems to have forgotten all about her dead boyfriend, weeps with relief. Girl-in-peril, Pop, and Pop's new squeeze, the marine biologist who has been following him around throughout, return to a quiet life of fishing. The End. Great cinema? No. Mildly entertaining? Well, only because of the Queen of Sidney and San Mateo. And to get through that there was a lot of bad dialogue and some surprisingly gory scenes to get through, including one poor woman getting her head bitten off with a crunch reminiscent of biting into a Tootsie Pop. C- D+ at best.  |
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Post by Kahloke on Mar 15, 2009 9:56:17 GMT -8
Nice review, and good shots of Sidney. We appreciate you impaling yourself on the sword of this obviously low grade, cheesy piece of celluloid just to get us some cool images of our beloved Queen of Sidney. It sounds like this movie may be a good candidate for Mystery Science Theater 3000 ;D
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Post by SS San Mateo on Mar 15, 2009 11:01:11 GMT -8
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Mar 31, 2009 8:45:30 GMT -8
I've been meaning to mention this for a while now... when I drive by the QoS these days (couple times a month, maybe), she seems to be dipping her nose quite a bit. Been like that since the big snowfalls back around Christmas, actually. Wonder if she's getting meltwater in where it shouldn't be toward the front?  Keep meaning to drive around on the Aldergrove side for a clearer view, but so far none of my travels have supported going that way. |
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