[JMO_0121]

Does anyone have pictures and information on the Port of Chicago. What role does it play in American's economy? Why don't we get cruise ships, could we get cruise ships? What are its flaws, and pros?
Pictures are greatly appreciated.

[bnk]

The size and limit of the locks keeps very large ocean ships out of the Great Lake system. Many years ago there was discussion on increasing the size of the locks like what is happening to the Panama Canal at this time. Due to the invasive species, from foreign ballasts, that invade the Lakes at this time there is no more call for an increase. The size of the locks limits the size of the cruise ship or any other boat. Most modern cruise ships are too long and broad to pass the locks.




These are some of the current cruise ships of the Great Lakes.

http://www.greatlakescruising.com/pearl-mist/pearl-mist.gif

http://www.greatlakescruising.com/ships.php

Another resource

http://www.great-lakes.net/tourism/rec/cruise.html





http://www.great-lakes.net/teach/business/ship/ship_5.html


http://www.great-lakes.net/teach/business/ship/system.gif

http://huron.lre.usace.army.mil/SOO/gifs/lock.gif


The Welland Canal

The Welland Canal, with its eight large locks, was built to allow ships to pass around Niagara Falls as they move from Lake Ontario to Lake Erie. This canal system, the western section of the St. Lawrence Seaway, ranks as one of the outstanding engineering feats of the 20th century. The current Welland Canal, the fourth to be constructed, was opened in 1932 and was the first segment of the modern seaway to be built. Vessels up to 740 feet (225.5 meters) long and 78 feet (23.8 meters) wide can travel through the locks. These ships may carry as much as 32,000 tons (29,000 tonnes) of iron ore or other cargo, and draft up to 26.3 feet (8 meters). With its long history, the Welland Canal is an integral part of the deep waterway that allows large lakers and ocean vessels to navigate to and from the heart of North America.

http://www.seaway.ca/en/pdf/welland.pdf


Some photos of the Great lake fleet

http://www.boatnerd.com/pictures/fleet/





http://www.boatnerd.com/pictures/fleet/americanspirit.htm

here is one

http://www.boatnerd.com/pictures/fleet/thumb/georgeastinson-5-30-01-air.jpg

And another. There are hundereds of pictures of similar boats

http://www.boatnerd.com/news/newsthumbs/images05/ALGONTARIOb1205-20-05mn.jpg

[bnk]

http://www.theportofchicago.com/index1a.html


Chicago, Illinois, America’s crossroads, the nations’s transportation hub —

where all modes of travel and freight movement intersect. Five federal highways and six of America’s major railroads pass through Chicago. Chicago’s airports have been critical to the global aviation system since the dawn of flight. And, well before trucks, trains, jets and planes moved people and freight, Chicago’s port facilities played a central role in America’s transportation system.

Today, the Port of Chicago remains the link between the inland-river system, the Great Lakes and the global marketplace. From Chicago, deep-draft commercial ships can reach the Atlantic Ocean through the St. Lawrence Seaway while barge traffic can reach the Gulf of Mexico through the Illinois and Mississippi Rivers.

“Salties”, lakers, and barges are equally at home in Chicago’s port facilities. Chicago’s diverse, vibrant economy, with more than a dozen industry sectors employing over 100,000 people, is directly tied to its central location and transportation infrastructure, including its port facilities. As the leading “general cargo” port on the Great Lakes, the Port of Chicago moves over 26 million tons of natural resources and other goods produced throughout the Midwest and the world annually, generating directly or indirectly thousands of jobs.


The Port’s direct access to the Chicago Rail Link, Elgin, Joliet,Eastern, Norfolk Southern, Chicago SouthShore and South Bend Railroads as well as to Interstates 90, 94, 80 and 57, make it a major intermodal nexus. The Port also benefits from the proactive leadership of Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley and Illinois Governor Pat Quinn whose ongoing infrastructure investments assure Chicago’s continuing role as the nation’s transportation hub.

[bnk]

Thinking about the locks on the Great Lakes again I found this info about the Soo locks that connect Huron and Superior. The Iron Ore [Taconite specifically] obviously accounts for most of the gross tonnage. Discuss....






http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soo_Locks


http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/ac/Soo_Locks-Sault-Ste_Marie.png

The Soo Locks allow ships to travel between Lake Superior and the lower Great Lakes. The locks pass an average of 10,000 ships per year.

This is achieved in spite of the locks' being closed during the winter, from January through March, when ice shuts down shipping on the Great Lakes. The winter is used to inspect and maintain the locks.

The locks bypass the rapids of the St. Marys River where the water falls 7 meters (21 feet) from Lake Superior. Sault Ste. Marie (pronounced Soo Saint Ma-ree) gives its name to both the Canadian and U.S. cities at the site, in Ontario and Michigan, respectively. The Sault Ste. Marie International Bridge between the United States and Canada permits vehicular traffic to pass over the locks.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sault_Ste._Marie,_Ontario

Shipping traffic in the Great Lakes system bypasses the Saint Mary's Rapids via the American Soo Locks, the world's busiest canal in terms of tonnage that passes through it, while smaller recreational and tour boats use the Canadian Sault Ste. Marie Canal.



http://web.ulib.csuohio.edu/SpecColl/glihc/articles/carrhist.html


The wonder of lake transportation is the suddenness of it, since it is but little more than half a century old, and its beginnings are well within the memory of men still living. Scarcely more than fifty years ago all the commerce of Lake Superior, as well as all the ships that carried that commerce, could safely be stowed in the hold of any one of the steamers now engaged in that trade. Yet, there are so many vessels now employed in that trade that over a waterway of 1,000 miles one vessel is rarely out of sight of another.

The government is now engaged upon the construction of a third lock at Sault Ste. Marie to be 1,300 feet long and 80 feet wide. It is predicted that in the course of time a large portion of the rapids will be occupied by locks, and the time may be much sooner than expected, so rapid has been the expansion of lake trade. No plans have over-reached it; on the contrary, all have fallen far short in the works created to care for it.



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taconite

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mesabi_Range





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[Nowhereman1280]

^^^ I had no idea that trade on the Great Lakes was increasing so greatly. I feel like it would only be natural to ship goods to Chicago and then distribute them via railways to local nodes where trucks then deliver them. Its too bad that the St. Lawrence Seaway doesn't go to the Pacific or Chicago would be receiving all of the trade from China headed to the East Coast.