Locks · Ohio River
McAlpine Locks and Dam: 14-barge tows, one-minute waits
McAlpine moved the fifth most barges of 173 locks. Only 7% of tows waited more than an hour.
McAlpine Locks and Dam sits at mile 606.8 of the Ohio River, at Louisville, Kentucky. Between 4 September and 4 October 2026, 378 commercial tows locked through. The median one pushed 14 barges and waited 0.02 hours, about one minute, from arrival to the start of its lockage.
Full chambers
The lock has two chambers. The main one is 1,200 by 110 feet, with a 37-foot lift, and opened in 1961. A standard jumbo hopper barge is 195 by 35 feet, so fifteen fit three wide and five long. The median tow here pushed 14, and the largest pushed 16. In all, 3,987 barges passed, fifth of the 173 locks with traffic in our archive.
Almost everything here is commercial. Only 5% of the 398 lockages carried no barges.
Waits stay short
The median wait ranks 103rd of 173. 7% of tows waited more than an hour, and one in ten waited longer than 51 minutes. Weekly medians never passed 0.03 hours, under two minutes. The longest wait was 4.45 hours, about four and a half: the upbound Jackie Englert, pushing 15 barges, arrived on 4 September. Across all 378 lockages, tows spent 91 hours waiting.
One operator, a quarter of the traffic
| Operator | Lockages | Barges | Hours waited |
|---|---|---|---|
| Crounse | 106 | 1,521 | 32 |
| Ingram Barge | 47 | 607 | 17 |
| Hardin Street Marine | 30 | 147 | 3 |
| American Commercial Barge Lines | 22 | 297 | 3 |
Crounse boats made 28% of commercial lockages and moved 38% of the barges.
Right now
At the last status report, early on 5 October, two tows were waiting, two were locking, and the Corps' own four-hour average delay was 44 minutes. Since live status began on 4 October, no more than four tows have waited at once. The live McAlpine page updates every 15 minutes.
Related
Sources: U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Lock Performance Monitoring System, archived by Lock Wait; chamber dimensions and opening year from the BTS National Transportation Atlas; operators from the USACE Waterborne Transportation Lines (2022) and FCC ship licences. Wait is measured from arrival to start of lockage. How every number is defined.