Quotation

No more spud wrenches and beaters. Now it was cowtails and hula hoops, chain slings, ratchets, the jewelry they used to tie barges up for a tow— three wide and five long on the Upper Miss on account of they have to pass through locks. But did she know what the record was on the Lower Miss? No, what? Seventy-two barges, a world-record tow the Miss Kae-D hauled from Mile 304 near Baton Rouge to Hickman, Kentucky, in May of ‘81. A fleet more than a quarter of a mile long, with a load capacity of 113,400 net tons. How did he remember that? Moved by rail it would’ve taken 1,152 boxcars, a freight train 13 miles long. By truck, shit, it would’ve taken 4,300 18-wheelers in a convoy, legally spaced, that would stretch 173 miles on the interstate.