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 on an

inland waterway A body of water, such as a river, canal or lake, is navigable if it is deep, wide and calm enough for a water vessel (e.g. boats) to pass safely. Such a navigable water is called a ''waterway'', and is preferably with few obstructions against d ...

Mississippi River & tributaries

MSC Marina docked at Port of New Orleans

There is limited use of this mode of transport because a lack of infrastructure on the upriver side in the United States. With the development of the Louisiana International Gulf Transfer Terminal at the mouth of the

Mississippi River The Mississippi River is the List of longest rivers of the United States (by main stem), second-longest river and chief river of the second-largest Drainage system (geomorphology), drainage system in North America, second only to the Hudson B ...

, container on barge traffic could become mainstream.

Missouri River

The Missouri River 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 long river in the United States. It is located at the boundary of the Midwestern and Southern United States, flowing southwesterly from western Pennsylvania to its mouth on the Mississippi River at the southern tip of ...

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 The Lower Mississippi River is the portion of the Mississippi River downstream of Cairo, Illinois. From the confluence of the Ohio River and Upper Mississippi River at Cairo, the Lower flows just under 1000 miles (1600 km) to the Gulf of ...

from St. Louis to the

Port of New Orleans The Port of New Orleans is an embarkation port for cruise passengers. It is also Louisiana’s only international container port. The port generates $100 million in revenue annually through its four lines of business – cargo (46%), rail (31% ...

has no locks or dams and allows

barge Barge nowadays generally refers to a flat-bottomed inland waterway vessel which does not have its own means of mechanical propulsion. The first modern barges were pulled by tugs, but nowadays most are pushed by pusher boats, or other vessels. ...

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 a city in and the capital of the U.S. state of Louisiana. Located the eastern bank of the Mississippi River, it is the parish seat of East Baton Rouge Parish, Louisiana's most populous parish—the equivalent of counti ...

United States plans

Plans have been developed to create container terminals at the mouth of the Mississippi and St. Louis by Q4 2024. The

Mediterranean Shipping Company Mediterranean Shipping Company S.A. (MSC) is an international shipping line founded by Gianluigi Aponte in Italy in 1970, with headquarters in Switzerland since 1978. The privately held company is owned by the Aponte family. It has been the lar ...

along with the

State of Louisiana Louisiana , group=pronunciation (French: ''La Louisiane'') is a state in the Deep South and South Central regions of the United States. It is the 20th-smallest by area and the 25th most populous of the 50 U.S. states. Louisiana is borde ...

and other investors are going to invest $1.8 billion to build a

container terminal A container port or container 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 vehicles, for example train ...

St. Bernard Parish, Louisiana St. Bernard Parish (french: Paroisse de Saint-Bernard; es, Parroquia de San Bernardo) 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 t ...

, to open by 2028. https://www.ksla.com/2022/12/13/gov-edwards-louisiana-lines-up-partners-18-billion-container-terminal-project-st-bernard/ Mississippi container carrier

References

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