Prospects to Interline River Barges with Oceanic Container Shipping

by Harry Valentine

While a new generation of oceanic ships carries increased numbers of shipping containers between nations, river barges still provide useful transportation services in many nations. Rivers such as the Danube, the Ganges, the Yangtze, the Parana and the Mississippi are all examples of navigable rivers that serve as important transportation corridors and contribute to the economies of nations. River barges meet oceanic ships at many ports located near the mouths of many rivers internationally, where barge-ship transfers of bulk cargo and other freight occur.

While some navigable rivers include navigation locks, other navigable rivers allow for inland passage without need for such features. Operators often assemble groups of barges into extended floating units or barge trains that tugboats pull along the rivers, picking up and/or depositing barges at various river ports en route. Even in nations with well-developed highway and railway transportation networks such as the USA, river barges still play an important role in freight transportation, as is the case along the Mississippi River.

The precedent of a common international size of shipping container may serve as a basis to develop a common size of barge that may sail navigable rivers in multiple countries, with possible future scope to transfer such barges internationally aboard special carrier ships. Barges laden with shipping containers and other freight may arrive at a major ship/barge port such as Buenos Aires, Shanghai or Dhaka where the laden barges may be taken aboard oceanic ship. Technology exists that involves ramps with rails that allow barges to be transferred between river and land. There may be scope to modify such technology to facilitate the transfer of laden river barges between water and the holds of specially modified oceanic ships.

Several years ago, an Australian researcher developed a concept of using rails to simultaneously transfer groups of shipping containers between ship and port, to reduce time-in-port. That concept may be expanded to include fully laden barges to reduce time-in-port and the delays that involve transferring freight between barges and ships. The operation can allow shipping containers to be arranged aboard barges at inland river ports in one trading nation and be ready for transfer to rivers at ship-barge ports in the partner-trading nation. Upon arrival at the destination port, barges carried aboard ships would be transferred from ship to river and assembled into barge trains that tugboats will tow upriver. Barges would be dropped off at selected river ports as the barge train sails upriver.

Freight carried aboard barges from the combination of Paraguay, Uruguay and Argentina may be sorted and arranged prior to arrival at Buenos Aires, where they may be loaded aboard oceanic ship destined for New Orleans. Upon arrival at New Orleans, the barges would be offloaded and assembled into barge trains that tugboats will pull up the Mississippi river to inland ports such as Memphis, St Louis and Kansas City. In Eastern Europe, the port of Istanbul may become a transfer point for barges that originate from and are destined for river ports along the Danube, the Dniester, the Pripet, Don and possible Volga Rivers.

Changing weather patterns have already reduced the navigation depth of several rivers including the St Lawrence River, where laden ships have occasionally run aground and sometimes sail with reduced payload. Should the changing weather pattern be a long-term phenomenon, further reductions in navigation depth may be inevitable along many inland rivers that presently allow oceanic ships passage for a considerable distance inland. One future option for the navigation season may involve trains of inland river barges with minimal draft that specially modified tugboats may pull through shallower water. Such technology may provide access to additional inland ports located along shallower river water.

For the St Lawrence River, catamaran-style twin-hull barges built to a length of 160-feet and beam of 35-feet may carry 4 x 40-ft shipping containers lengthwise and 4-containers abreast, for a total of 16-containers per level. The stability of the twin-hull design may allow the barge to carry 4-levels of stacked containers, for a total of 64 x 40-ft containers. Each navigation lock could accommodate the width of 2-barges abreast and the length of up to 4-barges. The installation of towing cables at the navigation locks could allow a train of 8-barge lengths to be split into shorter barge trains that may traverse the navigation locks. There may be future scope to widen the locks to 85-feet, to allow the width of 2-barges of 40-feet beam and carrying 20 x 40-ft containers per level.

As Brazil develops the region around the Amazon and Sao Francisco Rivers, there may be future scope to introduce barge train freight transport along these rivers and interlining with oceanic ships at their mouths. Canada’s Mackenzie river is at present barge-navigable, with scope to include to future barge trains that may carry bulk freight of natural resources between the northern regions of Western Canada and the Beaufort Sea. Changing weather patterns may extend the shipping season between the Beaufort Sea and the Bering Strait as well as in Hudson Bay and James Bay, from where a future navigable barge canal may connect to Lake Superior to provide access to inland lake ports such as Chicago, Detroit, Milwaukee, Toledo and Cleveland.

Changing weather patterns that reduce the navigation depth of some rivers plus a convergence of technologies offers the future option of large ocean going ships capable of carrying a common size of river barges. Research undertaken by the Freedom Ship group of Florida has shown that ocean going barges of 4000-feet (1200-meters) may be possible. It is likely that future research may adapt such concept barges to carry multiple river barges, including on many levels. Semi-submersible technology may allow for a giant ocean barge to lower itself to the floor of select ports to float barges on or off the lower levels, while ship-rail technology simultaneously moves barges between higher levels aboard ship via the port to and from water.

The option to use azipod-mounted, electrically driven propellers to power a large carrier ship also allows for flexibility in the engine system. The engine(s) and fuel tanks may be housed inside a barge that may be floated on and off the main ship while at port, where the main ship may receive electrical power from the local grid. It may partially submerge to different depths at different locations in the same select port, to allow for more than one level of barges to be floated on or off. The power unit may also serve a tugboat that may pull a laden or empty super barge, or serve as a towed power generator that supplies propulsive power to an electrically driven super barge while at sea.

Research groups have already explored the option of a giant ship capable of carrying multiple smaller ships (600-ft length x 75-ft beam) internationally and that could more easily be fitted into east-coast American ports. Such research may likely resume at some future time, after national economies recover from the present economic slow-down.

Harry Valentine can be contact via email at [email protected]