page_title: Binghamton (ferryboat)
section_title: Background
hierarchical_section_title: Binghamton (ferryboat) / Background
caption_attribution_description: English: John Stevens (inventor) of Hoboken, New Jersey. Below it says "From a portrait in the possession of Miss M. B. P. Garnett, Hoboken".
context_page_description: The Binghamton was a ferryboat that transported passengers across the Hudson River between Manhattan and Hoboken from 1905 to 1967. Moored in 1971 at Edgewater, Bergen County, New Jersey, United States, the ship was operated as a floating restaurant from 1975 to 2007. In 2017, following ten years of damage that effectively rendered the boat unrestorable, the ferry was dismantled. No structural components were salvaged.
  Binghamton was built for the Delaware, Lackawanna & Western Railroad's Hoboken Ferry Company to carry 986 passengers and their vehicles. Added to the National Register of Historic Places on July 9, 1982, the Binghamton was possibly the last surviving steam ferry built to serve New York Harbor, where commercial steam navigation and double-ended steam ferries got their start, and which was profoundly shaped by vessels of this kind.
context_section_description: Until the Pennsylvania Railroad built Pennsylvania Station in Manhattan and tunneled under the Hudson River, all New York-bound rail lines from the west terminated at the New Jersey shoreline of New York Harbor. Accordingly, a number of independent and railroad-affiliated ferry companies provided passenger and light freight service across the harbor. One particular type of ferryboat, the "double-ender," was especially common in New York Harbor.
  Steam navigation met its first commercial success in New York Harbor, with the voyage of Robert Fulton's North River Steamboat (Clermont) from New York to Albany in 1807.  Four years later, in 1811, John Stevens inaugurated what is thought to be the world's first steam ferry service on the Hudson River between Hoboken and Manhattan with the vessel Juliana.  The first American double-ended ferries appeared the following year with the paddle-wheelers Jersey and York of Robert Fulton's York & Jersey Steamboat Ferry Company. Excellent for transporting vehicles, the double-enders were well adapted to New York Harbor, where there was considerable demand for speed and efficiency (vehicles could drive on and off from either end, and time-consuming turns were not necessary). It has been estimated that over 400 double-ended ferries operated in New York Harbor during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The peak years were 1906-1908 when approximately 150 double-ended ferries were in service in the Harbor.
  The Hoboken Ferry Company was a subsidiary of the Delaware, Lackawanna and Western Railroad (DL&W). The company had a fleet of six ferryboats when it ceased operations in 1967.  These vessels took their names from principal stations on the DL&W RR's main line from Hoboken, NJ to Buffalo, NY.  Three of these - the Elmira, Scranton, and Pocono (née Scandinavia) - the Binghamton's sisters, were also built in 1905. (Another, the Ithaca, was destroyed by fire in 1946.) Of these, the Binghamton is now the only survivor.
  The Binghamton's engine: 4 cylinder, double compound, marine steam engine.  Like the double ended ferryboat Binghamton, this engine is of an axially symmetric design. Double compound engines were superseded by more efficient Triple expansion steam engines.
caption: John Stevens of Hoboken inaugurated the world's first steam ferry service between Hoboken and Manhattan in 1811.
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