This morning, before I got Adam up for school, I clicked on Dick's Towboat Gallery, and what was on the home page but a photo of the towboat Penny Eckstein.
I enjoyed looking at the pictures on the site for a couple of reasons. One was that I found some slides of this boat that I had gotten in the late 1980s when it was the Angel Brooke. I didn't scan any of them, though. The photos weren't that great, but I do have a bit of a photographic record of it being on the Ohio River back then.
The main reason I liked finding a picture of the Eckstein is that it reminded me that in my young days, this style of boat was what I thought of when the word "towboat" came up. The lines of the design, the sound of the engines ... back in the late 1960s, this is what a "towboat" was to me.
Now most of them are in South America. But I do like seeing the Pennsylvania and the Ronald E. Wagenblast when they're in my area and I can get down to the river.
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You and I are on the same page when it comes to the old ORC towboats. I never worked on the Queen City(Eckstein),I did work on the Rowe&Ovec.I remember them as being such wide boats. They were all powered by the old Baldwin-Lima-Hamilton engines(1080 hp ea)Very quite engines with a special sound.If you were around the Huntington landing in the mid 60"s you may have been looking at me!!Sort of strange our paths cross again. Well kind of!One more comment,I just thought of this.There were 18 crew members on each towboat in those days.3 deckhand's and mate or watchman.We did not have "tug service in those days".
Saw this boat in the Quad Cities (Mississippi River) on 4/15/14. Perhaps this gallery link will work. https://www.facebook.com/joe.flattrack/media_set?set=a.236774879847417.1073741851.100005447193965&type=1
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