Container on barge is a form of

intermodal freight transport Intermodal freight transport involves the transportation of freight in an intermodal container or vehicle, using multiple modes of transportation (e.g., rail, ship, aircraft, and truck), without any handling of the freight itself when changing ...

where containers are stacked on a barge and towed to a destination .

In the United States

There is limited use of this mode of transport because a lack of infrastructure on the upriver side in the

United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...

. Historically, container on barge service could not compete with rail service because of the at times significantly longer transit time limiting its ability to transport time sensitive cargoes. With the development of the Louisiana International Terminal at the mouth of the

Mississippi River The Mississippi River is the main stem, primary river of the largest drainage basin in the United States. It is the second-longest river in the United States, behind only the Missouri River, Missouri. From its traditional source of Lake Ita ...

, container on barge traffic could become mainstream, especially on the nation's inland waterways.

Missouri River

The

Missouri River The Missouri River is a river in the Central United States, Central and Mountain states, Mountain West regions of the United States. The nation's longest, it rises in the eastern Centennial Mountains of the Bitterroot Range of the Rocky Moun ...

has no lock and dams on it and from Omaha, Nebraska to St. Louis and there is only one lock and dam above St. Louis to lock through, the Chain of Rocks Lock, to get to the lower Mississippi.

Ohio River

The

Ohio River The Ohio River () is a river in the United States. It is located at the boundary of the Midwestern and Southern United States, flowing in a southwesterly direction from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, to its river mouth, mouth on the Mississippi Riv ...

has 21 locks all the way up to Pittsburgh and locking through takes about 30–45 minutes with a full 3x5, 15 unit barge.

Upper Mississippi

The Upper Mississippi has 25+ locks and dams from St. Louis to Minneapolis that are 600-foot locks and only allow 6 to 8 barge units per tow without having to double lock through gates (double locking takes 2 hours+).

Lower Mississippi

The Lower Mississippi from St. Louis to the Port of New Orleans has no locks or dams and allows

barge A barge is typically a flat-bottomed boat, flat-bottomed vessel which does not have its own means of mechanical propulsion. Original use was on inland waterways, while modern use is on both inland and ocean, marine water environments. The firs ...

s up to 7x6 or 42 barge units per tow. Oceangoing ships with drafts of 45 feet and height clearances over 150 feet can navigate the waters up to

Baton Rouge Baton Rouge ( ; , ) is the List of capitals in the United States, capital city of the U.S. state of Louisiana. It had a population of 227,470 at the 2020 United States census, making it List of municipalities in Louisiana, Louisiana's second-m ...

Plans for Future Developments

Container feeder ship - Lower Mississippi

The Mediterranean Shipping Company along with the State of Louisiana and other investors are going to invest $1.8 billion to build a

container terminal A container port, container terminal, or intermodal terminal is a facility where cargo containers are transshipped between different transport vehicles, for onward transportation. The transshipment may be between container ships and land v ...

St. Bernard Parish, Louisiana St. Bernard Parish (; ) is a parish in the U.S. state of Louisiana. The parish seat and largest community is Chalmette. The parish was formed in 1807. St. Bernard Parish is part of the New Orleans– Metairie metropolitan statistical area; t ...

, to open by 2028, it is going to be called the Louisiana International Terminal or ‘LIT’.

References

{{Reflist *https://web.archive.org/web/20160221043642/http://sea-point.net/container/ Intermodal transport