Car float

A railroad car float' in the Upper New York Bay, 1919. A tugboat stack is visible ‎behind the middle car.

A railroad car float is an unpowered barge with rail tracks mounted on its deck. It is used to move railroad cars across water obstacles, or to locations they could not otherwise access, and is pushed or towed by a tugboat. As such, the car float is a specialised form of the train ferry. Until the advent of post-war trucking, the railroads had 3400 personnel operating small fleets with 323 car floats, plus 1094 other barges, towed by 150 tugboats between New Jersey and New York City. Abandoned car float docks are preserved as part of Gantry Plaza State Park, at North River Pier 66a, at New York Central Railroad 69th Street Transfer Bridge. Brooklyn Army Terminal still has New York Cross Harbor Railroad car float service to New Jersey.