Every now and then Adam and I see a boat pushing 25 jumbo barges on the Ohio River. We call it an oversize tow because that's too many barges to go through an Ohio River lock in one cut. We've seen Crounse do it with the Linda Reed, and we've seen AEP do it with the Chuck Zebula, but usually it's an Ingram boat or a boat pushing for Ingram that does it.
Today we happened to see the
Vernon C. Smith William E. Porter (see comment below), owned by Amherst Madison but pushing for Ingram, coming upriver with 25 barges. The Matthew T was alongside it but not pushing. We figure it was along to take the 10 empties in the tow through the Robert C. Byrd locks.
Three pictures were taken from bridges. I drove and Adam shot. It's how we do things.
I don't know why companies do this unless it's to (a) test the pushing and maneuvering abilities of their boats and crews, (b) save on fuel or (c) use only one or one and a half crews instead of two.
Meanwhile, as of this writing at about 9 p.m., the tugboat Mr. Russell is somewhere in the Belleville pool headed my way.
3 comments:
None of the above,someone needs empty's in a hurry, after the miners vacation's. Been there done that!
Hey that's the William E Porter not the Vernon C Smth
I knew that. I also knew that both had been sold to Amherst Madison, and I knew that something would go wrong as I tried to work around the fact that the computer I normally post on has decided it wants to work at geologic speed. In short, I knew it but I blew it. Sorry about that. I'll correct it.
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