… We went on the badger 1 time never again we ordered some food and went outside 2 eat & after 2 minutes the food was black from suet [sic]. I read something in a local paper on how much coal suet [sic] goes in the water & it was an amazing amount it said the government was trying 2 make them convert over 2 diesel.
You want coal soot?
You should have had the experience of crossing the Straits of Mackinac before the Big Mac Bridge was built.
When I was a kid, in the 1940s and very early 1950s, we used to take the train (Michigan Central) to Mackinaw City, then cross the straits on the railroad car ferries before heading west on the old Duluth, South Shore and Atlantic (DSS&A, a.k.a. "Damn Slow Service and Abuse" or "Dust, Sand, Soot and Ashes").
We often crossed on the venerable
Chief Wawatam, a
coal burning,
hand fired ice breaker, with triple-expansion steam engines,
you can't imagine the volume of thick black coal smoke! The picture at the above link doesn't really do it justice; You should have seen it when that thick black smoke came roiling out of her stacks and curling down onto the outer passenger decks, completely engulfing them. We sure learned to stay in the passenger <strike>luonge</strike> lounge if we wanted to breath! She also had a classic old fashioned deep throated steam whistle that would really shake your bones, a 'nuther good reason to stay in the passenger lounge! She was the last hand fired steamer on the great Lakes. (
The Badger had/has automatic stokers.)
