By Railfan & Railroad Staff

The SS Badger, a historic railroad car ferry and the last coal-fired passenger vessel operating on the Great Lakes, will spend the rest of the season docked after its ramp system was damaged recently, the boat’s owners announced earlier this month. 

The Badger entered service in 1953 for the Chesapeake & Ohio Railway, which had acquired the Lake Michigan car ferry service from the Pere Marquette a few years earlier. The ferry connected Michigan and Wisconsin year-round, carrying passengers, automobiles and rail cars. Chessie System would end its car ferry operations in 1983 when it sold the Badger and other vessels to the Michigan-Wisconsin Transportation Company. The boat continued to carry rail cars for a few more years before being converted exclusively to passenger and automobile service in the early 1990s. Today, the ferry is owned by Interlake Holding Company and normally operates seasonally between Ludington, Mich., and Manitowoc, Wis. 

“We have made the difficult and unfortunately unavoidable decision to suspend our daily crossings for the remainder of the season,” said Mark W. Barker, president of Intermake Marine. “This is now how we hoped our 70th season would end but we are fully committed to making the extensive repairs — and doing it the right way — so that we will be back better and stronger in 2024 to serve our loyal passengers and port communities.”