JFM, great contribution, thanks for posting.

We are looking for any info about WWI river shipping.
Mostly interested in western front river ships, any of them, military, civilian, transports.
Thanks!

VikS,

I think you'll want to model the towed and motorized river barges that have navigated Europe's rivers for centuries. River and canal barges were also pressed into service by the warring nations as machine gun platforms, obstruction booms (at Zeebrugge), artillery platforms (outside of the ROF world though, along the Danube and in Mesopotamia), as troop ferries, and widely as hospital vessels.

Popular manufacturer's would be Freycinet and Luxemotor (our forum members in Europe might be able to find line drawings and more photos of the period's barges perhaps).

Here's a website with some brief history on France's barges:

http://www.riverdancebarge.com/history.html

Here's photographs of WWI barges, showing how they looked, and a few showing details of barges converted as hospital transports (all open source):

Dear Viks,

After the river boat standard gauge from 1822 proved too small, the FREYCINET GAUGE was chosen in 1879.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freycinet_gauge

All the French and Belgian river barges made after that date have a size that make them fit that gauge, which is the size limit for river locks.

"In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries many French canals were modernised to conform to the Freycinet standard". The French name for these 300 ton river boats made for that standard is péniche. That is the type of river boat you should make.

Photos of péniches:

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:P%C3%A9niches

It would also be magnificent to have the Old Hydraulic Boat Lifts on the Canal du Centre in Belgium:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lifts_on_the_old_Canal_du_Centre

(UNESCO World Heritage site)

Barges eh? Moving barges along canals and rivers would be a nice touch, maybe even a first in flight sims! The train is totally cool, barges would be great too especially if they were "target quality", if you know what I mean.