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Well, I am afraid it is not the sort of the vessel which we here on the Continent usually call ferry. Such barges were used to tow boats upstream the Rhine and other European inland waterways. For that purpose hundreds kms of chains were laid along the riverbeds. Downstream the boats sailed usually undriven. Thus, for example, millions tons of coal were exported from Bohemia to Saxony and Prussia in the late 19th century; thousands of empty wooden boats built in Prussia and Saxony were towed by such steamers upstream, loaded they sailed undriven. Once the loaded boat reached the customer for the third or fourth time, cargo was usually sold including the boat used for its transport. The coal merchants usually took the unloaded received boats apart into firewood or even building timber.
In my homeland Bohemia the last remnants of the chain were removed from the Elbe and Vltava (aka Moldau) riverbeds as late as in 1950s.
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