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Ohio River links vast industrial area
NATURAL RESOURCES, CHEAP TRANSPORTATION VALLEY'S SUCCESS SECRET
A midnight traffic jam loomed a few weeks ago at one of the Ohio River's oxbow bends between Louisville and Owensboro, Ky. Three 1,100-foot tows pushed by million-dollar towboats were heading for a crash, judging by patterns clearly traced on the radar screen of the towboat Oreo.
Traffic tieups are frequent but collisions are rare on this crowded river, where tonnage hauled is matched only by the lower Mississippi. Traffic is heavy because one of the great industrial valleys of the world — the Ohio River Valley from Pittsburgh to the Mississippi — owes much of its swift development since World War II to the boost given by the barges.
Within a decade $18 billion has been spent on plants costing a million or more
each. They line the river's banks and reach inland, occasionally going far up a tributary such as the Kanawha or Miami. The $ 1 8-billion figure was compiled by Ohio Valley Improvement Assn., an organization devoted to the waterways and area development.
The multiplied traffic volume stretches the capacity of the lock-and-dam facilities from Pittsburgh to the Mississippi. Several new and expensive high-lift locks and dams have been built; within a decade the locks will be reduced from 46 to 19, greatly speeding up river traffic.
Busy Thoroughfare ■ Huge barges loaded with coal, petroleum and chemical products move up and down the Ohio. Towboat piloting requires a blend of skill, experience and hunches.
Experienced skippers use all their ingenuity to make fast trips and maneuver their long tows through short locks.
It's a miracle there aren't more collisions. Capt. Charles Robertson, a veteran of the river, was in the pilot house of the towboat Oreo that dark February night. On the radar screen a three-way jam at the pretzel shaped oxbow bend seemed inevitable to an amateur observer. Capt. Robertson was annoyed but unflustered because a young pilot approaching from the rear notified him he was passing with his load of empties. Both were down-river bound; upbound around the sharp bend was a third tow.
After a salty phone exchange in jargon only a river man could understand, Capt. Robertson slowed down his twin
BROADCASTING, March 18, 1963
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