SS Keewatin (Govan, 1907) Returns Home to Port McNicoll, ON

It occured to me that i probably should have posted something before the event, but the CP Steamship SS Keewatin, built 1907 on the Clyde in Govan for the CPR was returned to her home port of Port McNicoll Ontario on Saturday for restoration to a tourist attraction. The Kee had been sold in the 60's to a man in Michigan, who had her as a "floating" museum in Saugatuck. Last year she was bought by Skyline Developments for restoration as the centrepiece of a new residential community they are building in Port McNicoll on the old harbour lands.

Various links on the Keewatin and Port McNicoll are below:

Friends of SS Keewatin - S.S. Keewatin

Eric Conroy's Blog (Former summer staff on the Keewatin and Restoration Project Manager) - Drone On. | Travelling the World of Eric

Skyline Developments Port McNicoll - Port McNicoll ? World-class Living on Georgian Bay for only $399,900

My Pictures from Saturday - Flickr: Archive of Stephen Gardiner's photostream: Taken on 23rd June 2012

My Pictures from Saturday (including shots of railway cars also bought by Skyline Developments from a closed restaurant, some are going to McNicoll to be with a re-creation of the harbour railway station as a restaurant, and two, the London & Port Stanley interurban car and the Dominion Atlantic Railway business car "Nova Scotia" (which was in Halifax in 1917 when the Mont Blanc levelled the City). The Nova Scotia has been donated to the Toronto Railway Museum and the L&PS Car to the Halton County Radial Railway here in Ontario to go with their other L&PS car.

Cheers

Stephen

 

Beatcha!

I put it on the Manxman thread last night as a rejoinder to the disgraceful breaking up of the last Manx Turbine going on right now.

Well done to you guys for having the foresight which our development and museum industry so lamentably lacks

 

Manxman deserved pride of place at least in this sort of development in the UK.

 

Is she compleatly static or is her steam plant functional? I found a shot of the valve gear on the engine that looked like it was in working order, but the ships website doesn't even mention her engines.

 

If you read Eric Conroy's blog, he says that they turned over the engines with compressed air during the cruise and everything seemed to work. That said, i have no knowledge beyond that, but i can't imagine the boilers which haven't been touched since 1965ish would pass a test without a lot of work.

 

I spotted a picture which showed 2 steam generators which looked intact but no good without a boiler.Many moons ago I sailed with steam generators when I worked for Trinity House,beautifuly quiet, THVs Ready,Vestal and Argus all twin screw reciprocating main engines,poetry in motion.
Colin.