The most fuel efficient way of transporting goods to the East Coast from the Midwest may come back.

[NNadir]

...The canal still remains the most fuel-efficient way to ship goods between the East Coast and the upper Midwest. One gallon of diesel pulls one ton of cargo 59 miles by truck, 202 miles by train and 514 miles by canal barge, Ms. Mantello said. A single barge can carry 3,000 tons, enough to replace 100 trucks.

As the price of diesel climbed over $4 a gallon this summer — the national average is now about $3.31 a gallon — more shippers rediscovered the Erie Canal. On one trip in mid-October, the Margot motored down the canal at about seven knots, pushing a barge loaded with a giant green crane. The machine was being transported from Huger, S.C., to the Pinney Dock, operated by the Kinder Morgan Company in Ashtabula, Ohio.

“It really just came down to economics,” said Lee Demers, the dock’s manager. The other option was to move the crane through the St. Lawrence Seaway, adding more than 1,000 miles and greater fuel costs to the trip...

From the rag:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/03/nyregion/03erie.html?em">Hints of Comeback for Nation’s First Superhighway

[phantom power]

1. Kilotons!

[IrateCitizen]

2. .

:popcorn:

[1776Forever]

3. I was always fascinated with this. Old ways are sometimes the best ways -

With some new innovations put into them.

:toast:

[Shadoobie]

4. All we will welcome this

We will welcome this change all the way up here in Duluth, MN. The most western port of the Atlantic ocean.



Greg