Locks · Ohio River
Montgomery Lock and Dam: small tows, local boats
The median tow here pushed 4 barges, and four boats from one company made a fifth of the commercial lockages.
Montgomery Lock and Dam sits at mile 31.7 of the Ohio River, at Monaca, Pennsylvania. Between 4 September and 4 October 2026, 247 commercial tows locked through. The median one pushed 4 barges. Only 47 different vessels made all 280 lockages.
A handful of boats do most of the work
Campbell Transportation made 51 commercial lockages with 4 boats, 21% of the total. Borghese Lane made 31, also with 4 boats. John's Towing Service made 14 with a single boat. The lock passed 1,395 barges in all, 27th of 173 locks.
| Operator | Lockages | Boats | Hours waited |
|---|---|---|---|
| Campbell Transportation | 51 | 4 | 31 |
| Borghese Lane | 31 | 4 | 22 |
| Industry Terminal & Salvage | 19 | 3 | 10 |
| John's Towing Service | 14 | 1 | 13 |
Small chambers, short waits
The lock has two chambers. The main one is 600 by 110 feet, with an 18-foot lift, and opened in 1936. A four-barge tow fits in one lockage. The median commercial tow waited 0.03 hours, about 2 minutes, from arrival to the start of its lockage, 90th of 173. Weekly medians never rose above 0.07 hours, about 4 minutes.
22% of tows waited more than an hour, and one in ten waited longer than 2.1 hours. The longest wait was 6.25 hours: the downbound Robert Dean Moore, pushing 17 barges for American Consolidated Natural Resources, arrived on 8 September. A tow that size is far longer than a 600-foot chamber, so it locks through in several cuts.
Right now
Since live status began on 4 October, up to seven tows have waited at once, and the Corps' own four-hour average delay reached 186 minutes. At the last report, early on 5 October, no tow was waiting. The live Montgomery 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.