VERY interesting Rupert - tks for you continued diligent search for CB&Q
material AND for sharing it - all from New Zealand.
I was VERY surprised to read on the first page that 'CB&Q constructed' the
dredge but at the end of the article it elaborated and explained only the
pontoons were built by Burlington employees while the dredge & coal barges were
built at the Dubuque Boat & Boiler Works with materials supplied by the
Burlington. The Dbq Boat & Boiler Works was at one time one of the largest
steamboat builders on the Mississippi (built the largest steamboat ever at one
point & did work for U.S. Navy in WWII). Closed in the "70's it is the heart
of the National River Museum (Smithsonian affiliated) along with the former
CB&N depot & freight house which we toured at the Annual Meet 5 yrs ago. Among
displays is a photo of the DB&BW rail mounted crane. They were a prime
customer for the Burlington with tracks forming the boundary between the frt
house & DB&BW. You can imagine the kinds of inbound materials: boilers on flat
cars, steel, wood, hardware, etc.
Back to the dredge - its shown in photos to be working @ Genoa (so named as
many early settlers were Italian). Originally the river was wide & shallow
here with no permanent channel which tended to create problems with embankments
on either side. Thus the dredging to widen ROW for the 2nd track. A Lock &
Dam was constructed on the south side of town in the "30's as was a coal-fired
power plant which in "67 had a small, pioneer nuclear plant added to the
complex. Dismantled years later due to its uneconomical size, the final
radioactive material was hauled out by BN with special Dept of Energy cars in
"07. The coal-fired plant still operates and has always had a siding but coal
is brought in by barge (rail existing initially for construction and then kept
in event a winter was so bad barges did not get upstream soon enough in the
spring to replenish coal stocks). Tks again for sharing Rupert!
Gerald
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