Any engineering nerds on here? Been having some unseasonably warm (60+ F) weather here lately and it was enough to finally overcome my cold weather photo inertia. Finally pulled my DSLR out for the first time this year yesterday and then had to figure out where to take it.
With nary an idea where, I pulled up a map of Louisville and spotted the McAlpine Locks and Dam and more importantly, that it had a visitors area that was open to the public. Back in the day the Falls of the Ohio River were the only barrier to navigation between New Orleans and Pittsburg, the city of Louisville grew up out of the need to portage goods around it. In the 1830s they built the first canal to bypass the falls and ever since there's been a steadily larger succession of locks and dams there.
Currently there's a pair of locks, 1200 feet long and 110 feet wide, which are operated by the Army Corps of Engineers. @scubahead how many narrowboats do you think'd fit in that? There's still a surprising bit of commercial traffic on the river, mostly barges moving coal and the like.
Was hoping to get some shots of one moving through the lock but despite spending the better part of the afternoon waiting, not a single one passed while I was there. If you look closely at the photo above you can see some people walking across the top of one of the gates for the lock, should give you some sense of the scale. The land in the background is Shippingport Island and the crane is the Henry M Shreve floating crane at the Corps of Engineers repair depot.
There were regular slots along the walls of the lock, every other one had a ladder like this. Imagine they'd be fun to climb after a nice dip in river water, hope you're not claustrophobic.
Not sure what that thing in the right hand slot is but the one on the left has another of those ladders. For whatever reason they just seem like a great candidate for those terrible safety videos they used to make us watch in vocational school.
Pretty sure that building on the right is Ground Control for Major Tom, or at least for the locks. Don't quote me on that though, there's a bit of a lack of information on the place, the 'visitor's center' here is some signs and a walkway with an overlook.
Without a barge passing through that's about all there is to see. Going to have to go back and try again here soon, and see if I can't find some way to get the Corps to let me on Shippingport to explore and shoot.
Holy crap i think all the Narrowboats on the marina we are currently on would fit into that
Lol, I think you're right, fucker was massive.
The shots are lovely
You did well with them!
Thank you!
Thanks!
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You really took amazing shots I must confess
I so much admire the beautiful view of nature here
Excellent post. So detailed! 😍