Rolling On The River? DELTA QUEEN Bill Passes House
September 25th 2013, the US House of Representatives approved a bill that would grant the historic, now static, DELTA QUEEN a 15 year exemption from a federal fire-retardant materials construction requirement. The bill still has to pass Senate. If successful there, it will be signed by President Barack Obama. Representative Steve Chabot, who proposed the bill, is confident, as then-Senator Obama co-sponsored the exemption in 2008.
Paddlewheel included, the DELTA QUEEN is 285 feet long (87 m), the distance across her cambered decks is 60 feet and with a shallow draft of just 9 feet and a flat bottom, the steamer is able to navigate several smaller American rivers.
DELTA QUEEN is currently moored in Chattanooga, Tennessee as a boutique hotel.
Partially built in Scotland, shipped in pieces to Stockton, CA and assembled in 1926, the DELTA QUEEN and her twin DELTA KING ran on a regular Sacramento River service between San Francisco and Sacramento, with excursions to Stockton, on the San Joaquin River for the California Transportation Company.
From 197o, DELTA QUEEN operated with a presidential exemption to SOLAS regulations prohibiting the operation of overnight passenger vessels with wooden superstructures. Congress continued to grant the 88-stateroom DELTA QUEEN exemptions until 2008, when safety concerns were raised, terminating the exemptions.
On February 11, 2009, DELTA QUEEN arrived in Chattanooga, where she opened as the Delta Queen Hotel on June 5, 2009.
DELTA QUEEN was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1970 and was declared a National Historic Landmark in 1989.
Visit www.save-the-delta-queen.org/ for more information and to join the effort to save the ship.
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Please write to your US Senator and ask them to support Senate Bill S. 1022 in favor of the Delta Queen!
This is like the best news ever. And, there is a potential buyer that would like to run the DELTA QUEEN if the exemption is granted. The DELTA QUEEN has seen many miracles and this certainly qualifies as one. The House Of Representatives voted 280 to 89 to support the DELTA QUEEN, at a time they could not even agree on funding the Federal Government. If that’s not a miracle I don’t know what is.