Western Railroad Discussion > Clinton Iowa Sequence

I know this is not "boatorders .com", but I wanted to share this sequence of photos (which does include a train photo, I promise). My knowledge on the operations of boats and barges are minimal, but I plan on doing more research. If you notice I've misspoke (mistyped?), please let me know.

For the past week, my parents and I went on a trip to Rochelle, IL, to check out the BNSF and UP crossroads. Being from Ohio, it was our sixth trip to the Rochelle area, always at the end of June (in 2004, 2008, 2010, 2012, 2014, and 2015, so far). We usually just stayed in the Rochelle area the whole time, but this time we did a lot more exploring, while staying within around 75 miles of Rochelle, to Janesville WI, Galesburg IL, and twice to Clinton IA, among others.

On July 1st, we arrived in Clinton to check out the UP yard and the CP line through town. We grabbed Wendy's to-go and ate alongside the Mississippi River in the gorgeous Riverview City Park, which had a good view of the US30 bridge over the river, which stands high above the low-clearance UP mainline swing bridge. We heard radio chatter between a UP MoW foreman and the lady in charge of opening/closing the swing bridge that indicated it would need to be opened soon. The MoW workers cleared up, and a large boat identified as Marquette Transportation's "City of Cassville" pushing 15 covered barges arrived. I'm used to seeing open barges filled with coal on the Ohio River in the Steubenville Ohio/Follansbee West Virginia area, and I'm not quite sure what were in these particular barges...grain, perhaps?

1) A tug boat was brought out to help get the barges through the somewhat narrow opening in the UP bridge.
2) The bridge now swinging open, the tug boat goes through to attach to the approaching barges.
3) The meeting of the tug boat and barges (to couple up, so to speak :D )

Continued... 
  



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/03/15 16:34 by Poker2662.

---

---

---

4) The tugboat guiding the barges toward the bridge.
5) The power moving the barges.
6) A good look at the whole setup.

Continued...

---

---

---

7) Passing by the bridge.
8) All clear, the bridge starts to close back up.
9) Now for an actual train photo, this loaded UP coaltrain wasted no time going east across the bridge into Illinois.

I plan on posting more train photos here from my week in the area sometime soon.

Thanks for looking.
Matt.

---

---

---

Barges are probably filled with grain. Note: on the river there, the boats doing the pushing are called "Towboats", believe it or not.

dharris
 



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/03/15 16:33 by dharris.

Interesting bridge action. Lots of different designs, interesting action with the tugs bow to bow to better control the barges.

There is a 'boatnerds' site mostly for Great Lake boats. there's a 'road-geekery' site for road 'signage', photos of intersections and old route info. There had been a Bridge site on Yahoo Groups... maybe span-nerds?

Thanks for posting. Interesting sequence to those of us who don't see this stuff on a regular basis.
Not so interesting if you're riding an Amtrak train and you get "boated," that is having to wait for 
river traffic which has priority at most, if not all moveable bridges.
BTW, the lady would be called a "bridgetender," I think.

Good shots--neat to see the cycle of how this operation happens.
Brian Stevens

Many towboats have EMD power - how did this one sound?

Cool pics!! Thanks for sharing.

The_Chief_Way Wrote: > ... Interesting sequence to those of us who don't see this stuff on a regular basis...

I have to concur 100%! John put into words exactly what I was thinking. Not having grown up anywhere near a classic 'river town' a sequence like this is a real treat to see.

Lance

Enjoyable series Matt, have you used Marinetraffic.com before?  If not, it should help get you started on your research identifying carriers, commodities, routes, etc.  I use it all the time out here in the PNW through the along the Columbia River & for Port traffic, its a great resource. 
Below is a link to the site, i set the live map to your Clinton river crossing to get you started.  As of 1050hrs there doesn't appear to be too much traffic in that area, but if you scroll South towards Davenport you will see some activity.  Have fun...
http://www.marinetraffic.com/en/ais/home/zoom:13/centerx:-90.182605/centery:41.850035/_:cec979bc08f01455465f8d3ce9c50cc6