Saturday, June 11, 2011

Barges

I don't know what it is about locks and barges that fascinates me but there is something because I've always been fascinated by them.  I can stand for hours and watch them go through locks.  I have a first cousin that used to work on barges.  He would be gone from home for 28 days and then be home for 28 days.
Army Corp of Engineers moving up into the outlet of the locks to unload stuff.  I must say they make the road workers look really good :)  There were 18 people out there and they needed 3.  The others just stood around and watched for 2 hours.

Here comes a barge into the locks.  They had to sit in there for over an hour since the Corp of Engineers had the outlet blocked.  You can see a power plant in the background.

Barge has been lowered and the doors are opening to let the barge continue downstream.

Here he comes...

There it goes on down stream.

5 comments:

Betsy Banks Adams said...

Hi There, I'm reading some blogs while we're on the road somewhere in Oklahoma.

I love watching the tugs and barges ---and especially the locks... Very interesting.. We would watch the barges in the San Jacinto area near Houston. There was a place called the Seaman's Center where people who worked on those barges would stop sometimes for the night, etc... Our church would deliver food and supplies to them... Must be a hard life.

Betsy

EG CameraGirl said...

I agree that locks and barges are interesting! I live a few miles south og the Trent-Severn Waterway and I was just telling my husband yesterday that we hadn't been to any of the locks yet this year. :) I think they are addictive.

Ruth Hiebert said...

Very interesting,especially to one living in the middle of the country,far away from such things.

Ginny Hartzler said...

I love these pictures! My family is from Pa. and they worked the locks on the Monongahela River. Yet I never understood the principle behind the locks, why do they put locks there in the first place, what is the point? I'm really dumb about this sort of thing, damns, locks and such.

George said...

My parents lived close to the locks at Old Hickory Dam near Nashville. We used to take the kids there to watch the traffic go through the locks -- they were always fascinated.