The Rapids - 400 hp. Used to ferry supplies on Lake Winnipeg
Kinnaird - Twin Screw 600 HP 65' Steel Tug. Steel Tug Built 1960 for towing in Lake Winnipeg.
National Post
Toronto, Ontario, Canada
02 Jul 1960, Sat Page 1
How Not-So-Tall Ships Will Sail Prairie Sea
WINNIPEG A joint partnership venture in inland shipping will handle the biggest transportation job in years on Lake Winnipeg (FP, May 14). Drake Construction Co. and Pearson Construction Co., both Winnipeg firms, have joined forces to haul equipment from the foot of Lake Winnipeg to the isolated Grand Rapids power development site, 280 mi. north on the west side of Lake Winnipeg.
The $1.5 million partnership: Drake Pearson.
The venture is operated by a joint management committee headed by Edward A. Buie, vice-president of Drake Construction, and Richard Josephson, president of Pearson Construction. Since early June, Drake Pearson has been busy building a full-scale operating base north of Selkirk on the Red River, in what was only an open field a few weeks ago.
The operating base will contain a field office, warehouse, truck scales and 300 ft. of dock frontage to handle all materials going to Grand Rapids under a four-year transport contract from the Manitoba Hydro Electric Board. One loading crane will be able to handle simultaneously two freight barges, one of them being tied up alongside while the other is end-loaded in a docking slip. Docking facilities will include three bulk oil dolphins to load fuel into bulk tankers. Drake Pearson is already operating the first units of a $900,000 investment in marine equipment.
The fleet: Three all-steel diesel tugs and barges.
The first tug, a 400-hp diesel built by Russel-Hipwell in Owen Sound, Ont., was shipped by flatcar to Selkirk and launched in mid-June. It made its first trip to Grand Rapids in the record time of 31 hours, with two loaded barges in tow. Two more tugs of 600-hp capacity will be in the water by mid-July, and plans are to move four or five bargeloads a week.
The contract calls for the movement cf 25,000 tons this season, 45,000 tons in 1961 and in 1962, and 30,000 in 1963. Drake Pearson will also build docking and storage facilities at Grand Rapids in what is still mud, swamp and mosquito-infested bush. The barge fleet includes one 150,000-gal. bulk tanker built sectionally by Russel-Hipwell and assembled by welders at Selkirk, and another tanker still to be assembled.
Six Flexifloat barges, built under license by Manitoba Bridge & Engineering Works in Winnipeg, will haul deck cargo. Barges are made of 22 steel cubes. 10 ft. wide and up to 40 ft. long. To make a barge: Fit the cubes together to form flat platforms 160 ft. long, then lock them together by bars and steel pins.
http://marinerail.com
