KENTUCKY - Barge traffic on the Ohio River: Louisville, Kentucky


Barges are stacked up along the bank of the Ohio River near Louisville, Kentucky. These barges were observed from the deck of the old "Big Four" railroad bridge in Louisville which will be the subject of another post. The Ohio River is 981 miles long and each year over 228 million tons of products are transported along the river by barge. This accounts for 28.7% of the total waterborne transportation of products in the United States. Only the Mississippi River accommodates more traffic than the Ohio River. Typical products moved by barge are petroleum, chemicals, sand, gravel, stone, coal and food products such as wheat grain. The massive barges are quite remarkable themselves. Each individual barge can hold the equivalent of 70 truck loads or 16 railroad cars of material. Barges are usually towed in groups of up to 15 barges moved by a tug/tow boat. These 15 barge configurations can carry the equivalent of 1050 truck loads or 2 full trains of material making the barge a very environmentally friendly option for moving materials. The Ohio River system certainly qualifies as an American Trail and in future posts we will discuss dozens of American Tales associated with this great river. The statistics in this blog post were derived from the following source:

Waterways: Working for America
Highlights of "A modal comparison of freight transportation effects on the general public"
A study by the Texas Transportation Institute, Texas A&M University


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