The Lackawanna is ready to shove off for one of the last times. She was dieselized in 1949 and in the last years of her service was the only non coal burner in the fleet. The last crossing would come days later, at 5:30pm November 22, 1967. She would have an unglamorous ending, left to rot and eventually sink upriver tied up.
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After her 1949 conversion to diesel, the "Lackawanna" (III) soon earned the nickname "Whining Willie" from commuters and her crew, because of the high pitch whining of her engines.
I remember this distinctly growing up...it was both a powerful and a haunting sound; once you heard it, you'd never forget it.
She and the steam-powered "Elmira" were the last two ferries in operation when the Barclay St. line was shut down in November of 1967.
For decades, the once-proud "Lackawanna" (III) (ex-"Chatham", ex-"Hamburg") sat upon the mudflats of the Witte Marine salvage yard on Staten Island; as recently as the 1980's, she was still mostly intact, albeit quite derelict.
The last pictures of her I saw awhile back showed only the collapsing lower deck cabins remaining, and, even that was clearly not long for this world.
The haunting call of "Whining Willie" still calls to me today...