The American Queen sits docked across the Tennessee River from the Delta Queen during a visit to Chattanooga on Saturday.Read moreCost of new lock rises as old lock at Chickamauga Dam is repaired
While the shuttered Delta Queen seems stuck in Chattanooga, the biggest riverboat still operating in Tennessee can't make it to Chattanooga and is bypassing the Scenic City today on its autumn Civil War run.
With the Wheeler lock in Alabama shut down for repairs, the American Queen steamboat has rerouted its fall Civil War tour to the Cumberland River this week. Passengers who were going to board the 436-passenger boat this weekend in Chattanooga -- and those already on the boat who were going to visit Civil War sites in Chattanooga -- are instead taking a bus between Chattanooga and the boat to be docked Saturday in Nashville.
The change in the route by America's biggest operating passenger steamboat was made after the Army Corps of Engineers shut down the Wheeler lock and dam in Alabama last week for a three-week maintenance outage. The lock is being dewatered to make gate and chamber repairs.
There is an auxiliary lock at Wheeler, but a spokesman for the American Queen Steamboat Co., said the American Queen is too big to use the auxiliary lock.
The American Queen, which is based on the Mississippi River in Memphis, usually has at least one visit a year up the Tennessee River to Chattanooga. The riverboat goes as far north as Pittsburgh, Pa., and St. Paul, Minn., and as far south as New Orleans at other times of the year.
Bill Peoples, chief of public affairs for the Corps of Engineers in Nashville, said the Wheeler lock closing has been planned since last year and the corps conducts meetings with river users twice a year to advise them of upcoming lock outages.
The American Queen originally planned a river trip from Memphis to Chattanooga and back this week and next. But the boat rerouted to the Cumberland River this week due to the Wheeler Lock closing. The American Queen was in Dover, Tenn., on Thursday and will be in Clarksville today before arriving in Nashville on Saturday. This weekend marks the first time that the American Queen, which was built in 1995, has traveled to Nashville.
Chattanooga's waterfront still is home to the Delta Queen, but that passenger boat hasn't been able to operate on the river since 2008. The riverboat, which first operated in California in 1926, was moved to Chattanooga in 2009 as a floating hotel. But the hotel was forced to close this spring when frozen pipes damaged the boat.
Chattanooga Mayor Andy Berke tried to evict the Queen shortly after he took office in 2013 for nonpayment of rent and to clean up the shoreline. The owners of the Delta Queen are trying to relocate and sell the boat but so far the purchase offers have stalled until Congress agrees to allow such historic boats an exemption from fire regulations that would otherwise prevent them from housing overnight guests while in transport.
Contact Dave Flessner at dflessner@timesfree press.com or at 757-6340.