Coal's mark

When I got this overhead view of an empty coal barge, it reminded me of a conversation I had with someone who worked for either CSX or Norfolk Southern way back in the 1990s.

We were talking about rail cars that haul coal. He said coal can corrode steel, which is why some old coal cars looked pretty bad.

You can see in this photo what several years of hauling coal leaves behind on a river barge.

For those who wonder, I blurred out the ID number of the barge so it didn't look like I'm trying to make any one company look bad.

Maintenance work at Pike Island

The Wheeling Intelligencer has an article about how the main lock at the Pike Island Locks and Dam is closed for a while because of gate replacement.

Delta Queen (updated)

Could the Delta Queen sail the Ohio and Mississippi river systems again? A group called Save the Delta Queen 2010 has submitted a bid to buy the DQ from Ambassadors International and put it back in service as an overnight passenger boat, according to the Evansville Courier & Press.

When I heard a couple of weeks ago that Rep. James Oberstar, D-Minn., had been defeated in his re-election bid, I wondered what that would mean for the Delta Queen.

A few weeks ago, a friend who lives near Chattanooga sent me some pictures via Facebook of the Delta Queen tied up there. The DQ looks okay there, but she really needs to be moving out and about again.

Here are three photos of the Delta Queen in Chattanooga, courtesy Tina Jarvis Karnes: