Missouri senators push for law to get Delta Queen steamboat cruising

St. Louis Post-Dispatch ^ | 1/11/2017 | Leah Thorsen

[iowamark]

The newest push to get the Delta Queen steamboat approved to carry overnight passengers is a Missouri Senate bill sponsored by Sens. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., and Roy Blunt, R-Mo.

An exemption to the Safety of Life at Sea Act, a federal law that prohibits overnight excursions on wooden vessels, is needed before the Delta Queen can carry passengers. The 285-foot-long vessel, with 88 cabins, had the exemption for roughly 40 years before losing it in 2008.

The bill introduced late Tuesday would restore that exemption and require the Delta Queen, which is compliant with all other Coast Guard safety regulations, to each year modify at least 10 percent of the wooden portions of the vessel’s superstructure to meet the U.S safety law...

The Delta Queen was bought by its current owners in February 2015 with the goal to restore the vessel — a cost recently estimated at roughly $10 million — and return it to overnight cruise service, the company said. It’s hoped the boat eventually will travel to more than 80 ports, including New Orleans and Memphis, Tenn., and on rivers other than the Mississippi to destinations including Pittsburgh and Cincinnati.

The Delta Queen steamboat began service as an overnight passenger vessel in 1927. It carried passengers, cargo and automobiles between Sacramento and San Francisco, as well as dignitaries including three U.S. presidents.

[iowamark]

Lobby your members of Congress to allow the Delta Queen to cruise again!

[Scrambler Bob]

in 1927. It carried passengers, cargo and automobiles between Sacramento and San Francisco
= = =

If CA had kept it, Jerry Brown would not need the Bullet Train.

[the_Watchman]

We just watched a documentary on hotels this evening. The Delta Queen was one of the featured hotels and was still running at the time the documentary was shot.

The Delta Queen began in California making runs between Sacramento and San Francisco. It was pressed into service by the U.S. Navy during WWII and painted gray. It ferried wounded soldiers and sailors from return ships to hospitals in the San Francisco area.

[omegabea]

Thank you for posting this article. My late husband, Robert Schuler, designed the Delta Queen and I would love to take a ride up the Mississippi on her.

[iowamark]

She spent the last few years docked in Chattanooga, Tennessee as a hotel-restaurant.

[RedStateRocker]

I would so love to take an overnight on her!

[BBell]

I live near New Orleans and when I’m down there I love to watch the NATCHEZ when it launches or comes back to port. The sister ships of the Delta Queen are out of commission too. The Mississippi Queen has been scrapped and the American Queen has been refurbished and retrofitted but I don’t know if it still sails.

[vetvetdoug]

I was lucky to have given a lecture about the cavalry on the Delta Queen at Shiloh and take its guests on a tour of that battlefield several years ago. It is a very nice boat and the atmosphere enjoyable.

[HANG THE EXPENSE]

Very cool.

[DesertRhino]

Why not just have passengers sign a statement that they have been made aware of the risk? we have become a nation of pussies.

[hanamizu]

I believe the heart of the Delta Queen’s problems is or was a dispute between the company that owned her and a labor union. She got annual exemptions from the rules for years until a problem with the union cropped up. The union put pressure on Congress or a regulatory board to deny the exemption. Perhaps things will change with the new administration.

[dandiegirl]

Wow!

[Paul R.]

This company still offers river cruises in “modern” (as in recently built) paddlewheels:

http://www.americancruiselines.com/cruises/mississippi-river-cruises/cumberland-river-cruise

(I do not have anything to do with this company.)

[BBell]

If I recall they own the American Queen. I just don’t know If they still sail it.

[kalee]

Iirc they offered themed cruises, Civil War being one.

[Henchster]

In 1946, Delta Queen was purchased by Greene Line of Cincinnati, Ohio and towed via the Panama Canal and the Mississippi and Ohio Rivers to be refurbished in Pittsburgh.

They must have got REAL lucky with the weather on that trip.

[RaginRak]

From the headline, I thought this was a story about Lindsy Graham

[niteowl77]

The last time I saw the Delta Queen lock through on the Upper Mississippi, she was looking a little tired… that may have actually been her last trip downstream, or close to it. Unlike newer, larger sisters, she isn't a caricature of a steamboat (though she loses Mississippi River style points by having a single, centered stack).

I still remember clearly the guy in the House - Democrat, of course - firing the torpedo into the exemption she needed. In a bit of irony, the Delta Queen still managed to outlast him.

Mr. niteowl77

[sphinx]

I was on the Delta Queen once as a kid but have never taken a cruise since. A Civil War cruise is somewhere on my bucket list. What is your objection to the modern boats, aside from being steel? I grant that wood is nice, but on balance, I’ve no real objection to fire protection.

[Buckeye Battle Cry]

I grew up in Cincinnati when the Delta Queen called Cincinnati her home port. I remember her well.