The newest Branch Lines tanker, ARTHUR SIMARD, cleared Sorel bound for Quebec City on her maiden voyage on September 30, 1973. There will be yet another tanker on the way at Sorel for Branch Lines but this would not seem to endanger any of the older vessels in the fleet since a recent newspaper review of tanker operations on the lakes quoted a representative of Branch Lines as saying that the company had more business offered to it than could possibly be handled by the ships currently available. All the major Canadian tanker fleets seen to be in the same situation.

From time to time, a few American upper lake carriers pay visits to Lake Ontario to bring grain down to Oswego. Although the Hutchinson and Cargo Carriers fleets used to look after these cargoes when necessary, passages in the past few years have been limited to a few regulars, such as Kinsman's JAMES E. FERRIS or BUCKEYE MONITOR. The most recent upper lake visitor is the Medusa Cement steamer C. H. McCULLOUGH JR. which a few weeks ago unloaded grain at Buffalo and then took a part cargo of barley on down to Oswego. She passed through the Welland downbound on October 19th and returned for upbound transit of the Canal on the 21st. Built in 1907 as WARD AMES for the Acme Steamship Company, the McCULLOUGH was for many years a unit of the Interlake Steamship Company. Sold to Medusa in 1970, the steamer is apparently awaiting eventual conversion to a bulk cement carrier. As far as we know, this is the first Welland passage the ship has ever made.

As our readers will remember, the former Wilson Transit steamer J. H. HILLMAN JR. is currently incarcerated at Toledo where the American Shipbuilding Company is rebuilding her as a self-unloader for her new owners, the Columbia Transportation Division, Oglebay Norton & Company. She was to have been ready by October 1973 but one of our spies saw her recently and says that there is much work left to do and that it seems unlikely she will sail this year.

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