Solvay 47

Solvay 47, registration NY2777F, was built at Choisy-le-Roi in 1925 with a Kromhout engine that was replaced with a 25 hp Deutz. The information on this page is taken from Vagus-Vagrant.fr unless otherwise stated.

It ended its career as a Panama barge in the mid 1960s. The small Solvay barges assigned to the Dombasle-Sarralbe service and the return trip carrying coal from the Saar to Dombasle were called the "Panamas". These boats didn't have a permanent crew. Their drivers were employees of the CGTVN (Compagnie Générale de Transports du Nord), the electric loco barge towing company, and later of Bargest. They would swap boats mid-journey when they met another one coming from the opposite direction, as did the locos. The control centre for this traffic had its office in Dombasle near the Pierre Escuras bridge. The first person in charge was Alfred Piant, whose sister ran the Spar grocery store at lock 22 in Dombasle. Two or three large Solvay barges ended their careers this way. Often, after years as Panama barges, they were scrapped in the dead end of the Dombasle port.

A couple of photos of Solvay 47 in Verdun in the early 1960s:

Next to the damaged Solvay 78:

At the Chevregny side of the Bray tunnel on the Oise-Aisne canal with captain Joseph DUTREMEZ, and his son Bruno.  A few years after arriving in 1991, Joseph founded and became the first president of the Association of Lorraine Boatmen, in Dombasle, which was dissolved in 2018:

Still at the Chevregny side of the Bray tunnel but with Joseph's wife, Denise, with her little brother and in her arms, her son Bruno: