Ship Modelers Database
Lackawanna (tugboat)
Sunk
Lackawanna was a steam-powered coastal/sea-going tug built around 1900 for the Delaware, Lackawanna & Western Coal Company (later associated with the Delaware, Lackawanna & Western Railroad's coal operations), used to tow barges of anthracite coal along the East Coast of the United States. She is a popular subject for scale modelers thanks to her unusually yacht-like, white-painted appearance for a workboat.
Kits of this ship
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Plans
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Build logs
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Resources
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- Hampton Roads Ship Model Society: Lackawanna Model PageWebsite
Club showcase page with specifications, a brief service history (including her 1915 sinking), and multiple photos of a built scale model, useful for hull and deck detail reference.
History
Specifications
Sources give her length as approximately 137 feet overall. She was coal-fired, with a reciprocating steam engine (some sources cite a roughly 950-horsepower plant fed by two boilers) driving a single screw propeller. Scale model kits of her (Dumas, Bluejacket) are produced at around 1/48 scale, with finished models about 33 inches long.
Service history
Lackawanna worked the East Coast hauling barges loaded with hard (anthracite) coal from Pennsylvania mining regions to industrial centers in the northeast and south, operating on behalf of her coal-company owners rather than as a harbor tug. On 15 August 1915 she was struck by the barge Nanticoke, then under tow by the tug Triton, and sank within minutes, with two crew members lost.
Notable facts
Unlike most grimy coal-fired tugs, Lackawanna was painted white specifically to advertise the clean-burning qualities of the hard anthracite coal her owners shipped, giving her a distinctive, almost yacht-like profile among contemporary workboats. This striking look, combined with her graceful sheer, has made her a favorite prototype for tugboat model kits from manufacturers such as Dumas and Bluejacket Shipcrafters, as well as scratch-built club models.