ExiledInIllinois Posted January 24, 2014 Author Share Posted January 24, 2014 (edited) Ice, ice, ice, and more ice... Everywhere! The arctic was supposed to be free of ice by 2013... But we can't get through Chicago! This is today, tanker(s) (x2) heading south with 3,200 each (6,400 total) tons of pretrochem. There is a 54 foot width restriction in place, this picture is the widest that can come through now. This tanker is 54' wide and configed "strung out" for a of length 700'+ (with towboat). Full opening is 110 feet wide, 1,000 feet long. Lower pool: 54' wide tanker(s) (x2) from NOLA... Do those poor southern boys look cold! Welcome to the TOUGH, HARD WORKING NORTH! No slacking up here! The Ann Elise pushing empty, north: Nice shot from last week: Edited January 24, 2014 by ExiledInIllinois Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ExiledInIllinois Posted January 24, 2014 Author Share Posted January 24, 2014 (edited) Here is a picture of a mainline towboat @ Starved Rock: These types are not retractable pilot houses, so they can't go under low bridges. These boats can make it all the way up to and past Joliet, Illinois. @ Lemont the vertical controlling height is around 19.5'... Everything @ that bridge (Lemont Highway Bridge) and above is moved w/retractable pilot house boats. Here is an example: Notice the pilot house slides up and down on a giant piston. w/it down, the boat can slide under low bridges... Up, the pilot can see over the bow of the long tow. Steps to the pilot house move up and down. With the Upper Mississippi shut down due to the wintertime, all the tows on the Upper Miss head to work on the Illinois. Here is LaGrange Lock & Dam just below Beardstown, Illinois (a 100+ miles or so above St. Louis): Notice the multiple tows in the background... This time of the year, tows can be queued up all the way to Havana, Illinois waiting for their lock turn. Here is the other half of the above picture looking downstream. Also, tow in background waiting to go north. This is the first cut of a double lockage. First cut of barges are in chamber and will be hauled out with the tow haulage units (cable & winch)... Then go back for the other half w/towboat as seen in prior picture. Edited January 24, 2014 by ExiledInIllinois Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ExiledInIllinois Posted January 25, 2014 Author Share Posted January 25, 2014 (edited) Finally got some full daylight winter pics: Two tows got stuck in an "ice jam" (ice gorge) below the lock. Below the lock, the river rises from about 20' deep to 9' deep (project depth)... Ice gorges from top to bottom of river... Like a big "Slurpee." It took these two tows about 2 hours to get out of the jam. Gates show how much they are lacking full recess: Edited January 25, 2014 by ExiledInIllinois Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ExiledInIllinois Posted January 30, 2014 Author Share Posted January 30, 2014 Here are a few pictures of the ice chipping operations that has to be done. This is extremely sucky and it wears your arms out. Trusty ice chipper pole: Closeup, pick freezes almost instantly when placed in the water as noticed by the ice forming on it. Ice along the curved gate/recess (in background) is critical to clear because the gate, when opening or closing, has very little clearance there: Here is how the ice in the gate recesses gets chipped away: Upper end gate recess #2 (out of 4 total) tonight: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ExiledInIllinois Posted February 22, 2014 Author Share Posted February 22, 2014 Page 5? LoL... Oh well, been a long winter! Looks like this gander didn't get the memo: He must be waiting for his buddies to return back from Boca Raton. <_< Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Keukasmallies Posted February 23, 2014 Share Posted February 23, 2014 I enjoyed the update. I'm getting into the whole inland waterway scene. I follow some of the Selkirk tugs and several others on Marine Traffic's site. Keep the pics coming! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ExiledInIllinois Posted February 23, 2014 Author Share Posted February 23, 2014 Yeah... We were in the lulls of winter and ice... Not much was moving through the ice fields... Through that time, just making sure everything stayed operational and didn't freeze in. Sun getting a higher angle should help. They are stock piling barges for a spring push. Things are freeing up like a herd of turtles on steroids! Here's the guy we helped with the busted rudder part. Ice can do some damage, but he is up and going: This from earlier this morning... 1,600 tons of scrap being pushed down river... Nice to see a that azure sky! When we get the life boats and work barge all up and running for the season, I will take it up and down the river to shoot pictures... Maybe get a some pictures of all the draw bridges through South Chicago. Heck, I may even strap on the GoPro Hero and post the vids to Youtube! I used it last weekend skiing and the videos came out really cool! Maybe I will figure out a mount for our lock golf carts! Lock/river action-cam! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ExiledInIllinois Posted February 27, 2014 Author Share Posted February 27, 2014 Hey 'Smallies... Here are a few pictures that I found from LaGrange down near Beardstown, Illinois... From a couple of weeks ago. When the Upper Mississippi shuts down due to ice/winter, most commercial shipping moves to the Illinois. Here are a couple pictures of the industry "self-help" system they have going. Tows from one company will assist other towing companies by clearing ice and aiding cuts through the locks, especially down by LaGrange & Peoria. The lock may do a series of lockages in one direction only to clear traffic, then do a series of lockages in the other direction. Again, towing companies helping each other out. This picture shows a northbound petro-chem barge w/Corps towboat (tan/red) in background & an industry vessel (blue/white) waiting to help assist the cut. They are just north of the lock while one gate @ a time is being swung through the ice. Beardstown, Havana, Illinois etc... would be to the north: Here is the lower end of the picture shot. It shows a "set over" lockage. That means towboat & barges can't fit in the lock chamber all hooked up. The towboat unhooks and then "sets over" alongside its barges that it is pushing. These barges from New Orleans, probably heading up to Lake Michigan @ Whiting, Indiana and the BP refinery: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BuffaloBud Posted February 27, 2014 Share Posted February 27, 2014 Now back to our regularly scheduled programming, the smooth relaxing scenes from Scotland & the Falkirk Wheel: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n61KUGDWz2A Who'd a thought all things locks & dams, canals, boat lifts could have been so much fun! One of my favorite engineering marvels! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ExiledInIllinois Posted March 3, 2014 Author Share Posted March 3, 2014 (edited) March 2nd and it looks like this! Normally we'd have the bassboaters putting in about this time... Yikes: Upper pool (Lake Michigan): Marinas, boat launch in background. Lower Pool (River): Not the best picture (sorry)... A set of ducks that I have never seen before. Does anyone know what kind of ducks these are? Edited March 3, 2014 by ExiledInIllinois Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ExiledInIllinois Posted March 10, 2014 Author Share Posted March 10, 2014 Shot some pictures of the river below the lock. About 5 miles down river, the river will never freeze. Acme Steel puts out warm water and Water Reclamation aerates and circulates. Then I went up river just 2 miles and shot pictures from the boat ramps @ the forest preserve. One is a panoramic shot. Here are the ice fields on the river. It is going to be 55 degrees today, towboats will cut that up pretty fast. I am banking this will be gone in 2 weeks so the pleasure boats & bass boaters can get going! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ExiledInIllinois Posted March 13, 2014 Author Share Posted March 13, 2014 (edited) The Wendella fleet of sightseeing vessels is still stuck in the ice below the lock. First time in 79 years they will miss the start of the boating season. Here is a pic from the article. Notice they must use water circulators around their hulls to keep the ice from heaving the boat: The article: http://www.marinacit...s/fleet0312.htm "It is so cold in Chicago this year, a fleet of tour boats is stuck in ice and will miss the scheduled start of its season. March 14 was supposed to be Wendella’s first day back on the Chicago River, in time for the annual dyeing. April 4 is the new date. This is the first time this has happened in the company’s 79-year history. According to Wendella’s president, Michael Borgstrom, the entire fleet is stuck in ice that is 20 inches thick at the company’s shipyard on the Calumet River. Even if they could get free of that ice, the boats need to go north on Lake Michigan to get to the Chicago River – and ice on the lake, says Borgstrom, has made that impossible.." Edited March 13, 2014 by ExiledInIllinois Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ExiledInIllinois Posted March 18, 2014 Author Share Posted March 18, 2014 Busy, busy, busy! River was frozen over with 20 inches of ice. No traffic was able to get through sinice the 24th of February. The towboats started to cut a trail through the ice on Saturday... They are shunting only one or two barges a pop and making many trips... Since Saturday... 61 lockages (vessels) and 83 barges have come through. Here are some pics of them ripping up the ice: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fan in San Diego Posted March 20, 2014 Share Posted March 20, 2014 Not the best picture (sorry)... A set of ducks that I have never seen before. Does anyone know what kind of ducks these are? Hard to tell from the grainy image but my first guess is a tufted duck, my second guess would be a Barrow's Goldeneye Try and get a better pic. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ExiledInIllinois Posted March 20, 2014 Author Share Posted March 20, 2014 Hard to tell from the grainy image but my first guess is a tufted duck, my second guess would be a Barrow's Goldeneye Try and get a better pic. Thanks! They are really skitish! As soon as I get a little close, they get scared. I should pull out my film camera with a telephoto lens, LoL... That is all I got that is powerful enough to take decent pics from afar. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ExiledInIllinois Posted March 21, 2014 Author Share Posted March 21, 2014 (edited) If anybody likes watching paint dry... I put to video a northbound multi-vessel lockage, from Wednesday: And then the subsequent southbound exchange: Edited March 21, 2014 by ExiledInIllinois Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ExiledInIllinois Posted March 22, 2014 Author Share Posted March 22, 2014 Hard to tell from the grainy image but my first guess is a tufted duck, my second guess would be a Barrow's Goldeneye Try and get a better pic. Unfortunately, a co-worker said he had to scrap two dead ducks off the lower end ice! Last week that is. :cry: Then there is this: http://www.accuweather.com/en/weather-news/chaotic-winter-hard-on-ducks-b/24590501 "...Due to extensive ice cover and cold temperatures, diving ducks don't have access to the amount of food needed to sustain themselves," she said. Bird watchers in western New York who have been birding since 1945 said they have never seen a die-off like this, Gollwitzer said..." Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ExiledInIllinois Posted March 22, 2014 Author Share Posted March 22, 2014 Hard to tell from the grainy image but my first guess is a tufted duck, my second guess would be a Barrow's Goldeneye Try and get a better pic. Here is the link to a video about ducks not making it since Lake Michigan is so frozen... http://www.weather.com/video/winter-killing-off-duck-population-45680? The showed the ducks I shot in the picture... It is a diving duck. A red breasted merganser. Seems the red breasted merganser and white winged scoter are especially hard hit! I guess this poor little guy needed open water to get a head start and fly away! Probably was doomed! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ExiledInIllinois Posted March 30, 2014 Author Share Posted March 30, 2014 March 30th and we are about 3 weeks late kicking off the pleasure boat season, but today it appears that all the ice and snow is gone... Maybe about 1% left in the reaches of the dam/controlling works. Southwestern Lake Michigan is all clear and the pleasure boaters will be itching to get their boats up and out to the slips by the 15th of April. Marinas and Park District will have to hustle to get the docks in and fixed up for the April 15th rush! We will probably see a rush of pleasure boats like we did with barges when the river opened up a few weeks ago. Commercial cargo did a great job to open things up! Something like 350+ barges came through in the last 14 days... Pleasure boaters will be grateful that their season can finally kick off! Today is 55 and tomorrow it will be in the mid-60's... Hope we push 70! We need it! Upper End, Lake Michigan Pool: Lower End, Canal: Last of the rotting snowbanks: Last of the ice, upper pool by the dam and our work flat. You can see how thick it was. We could have driven a truck over it a few short weeks ago: Will spring stick? @ least March is going our like a lamb! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ExiledInIllinois Posted April 6, 2014 Author Share Posted April 6, 2014 (edited) Warm weather is here and it appears it is sticking. 3 weeks too late, pleasure boat season is starting to heat up with the bass fisherman heading out to their daily spots. Most, if not all will launch on the river and head through the lock daily (back & forth)... Not many launches from above the lock to The Lake. Ice out for southwestern and most of southern Lake Michigan! Even during the extreme winters, ice doesn't last long on southern Lake Michigan. We didn't even make April, I think the last piece of floating ice I saw was March 30th... The lastest ever in my 20+ years. Kind of amazing that ice 2+ feet ice thick can melt so fast... Commercial shipping really rips it up and speeds the process of it flowing down river! The Seadogs and other tour boats have made it out from their winter births on the Southside (Cal River & Cal-Sag Channel) to Navy Pier. With the late rollout of pleasure & tour boat season, most of the seasonal "snowbirds" & tour boats will probably come all @ once through the lock on the really nice days. I am on midnights now, some of the Wendella tour boats made it through last week and others will be following in the coming days/weeks. Here is information on Chicago boat rides and a nice picture of the Seadog @ Chicago Harbor Lock... The Seadog & Seadog Extreme made it through our lock today. http://sweeptight.com/2013/07/seadog-chicago-boat-rides.html If I am around, I will try and get some tour boat shots @ our lock... But nice shot of the lock downtown: Edited April 6, 2014 by ExiledInIllinois Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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