PADDLE STEAMERS
Paddle Steamers I World of Ships I 19
trucks and towed down to the ferries’ car decks,
from where the contents was manhandled to
the bunkers. The same trucks were then used
to bring ash and clinker ashore.
In their earlier years, the steamers carried
livestock on the hoof, which occasionally
caused problems, a cow once falling down the
stairs leading to Wingfield Castle’s crew mess,
while another animal jumped overboard and
proceeded to swim back to the New Holland
shore. Wingfield Castle and Tattershall
Castle’s engines took steam from boilers aft of
the engines, while the positions were reversed
on Lincoln Castle. Ferry crossings usually
took around 20 minutes, but occasionally
had to be suspended during periods of low
water, or there was a much longer trip heading
downriver from New Holland towards Paull
along the southern shore, and then crossing to
run back along the northern side to Hull.
Tattershall Castle became Britain’s first
paddle steamer to be fitted with radar, and
similar installations followed in the other
ships as services continued in time-honoured
fashion, with two vessels running and the other
lying spare at New Holland Pier’s inside berth,More than a dozen vehicles,
including vans, are squeezed on
to Tattershall Castle’s after deck
during a Hull-New Holland run in- (Russell Plummer)
Cars brought from Hull
Corporation Pier have left Lincoln
Castle at New Holland to drive up
the shore ramp while the steamer
awaits her next load.Wight maintaining a single-vessel service until
closure of the route. Lincoln Castle served as
a restaurant in the shadow of the Humber
Bridge at Hessle before going to Grimsby in a
similar role from 1989 until 2006, and lay idle
until demolition started in 2010.
At the time of their introduction, the 1934
pair’s main role was passenger transportation,
with train connections to and from New
Holland Pier. Car traffic was encouraged,with ramps at either terminal running down
to floating pontoons from where up to 20
cars could drive on to the ferries through
side doors leading to an open after deck. The
steamers were based at New Holland, with
trains running to the pier station the best part
of a mile out into the Humber, where there was
an ingenious fuelling process for the steamers
using an additional centre track. Wagons
brought in coal, which was loaded into small01 Paddlers_Britain_NL.indd 19 17/04/2018 09: