Other Miscellaneous Types of Barges
A railroad car float is a barge that’s unpowered with rail tracks mounted on deck. It’s used to move railroad cars across water, or to locations they are otherwise difficult to go to. They’re pushed by a towboat or towed by tugboat. In this sense, a car float is a more specialized form of a train ferry.
Dutch barges are flat-bottom boats, that gets its name as they were originally used for carrying cargo in the Netherlands. Many of the Dutch barges have been family-owned and operated – and as such, barge sailing matches in the Netherlands take place with great pride.
Many of the Dutch barges have now been converted for pleasure (see below) or residential use. Most of these existing barges are made of iron or steel and powered by engines, whereas originally, they were made of wood and powered by sail. Though they vary greatly in size, they are generally lighter than the Humber barge.
A pleasure barge is a flat-bottomed barges that’s used for leisure, as opposed to be used for transporting freight. May regions where canals or rivers play a prominent role, like New Orleans or in Mississippi, use pleasure barges for conducting water-based festivities, religious ceremonies, or simply for viewing the landscape.
Liquid cargo barges transport petrochemicals, such as benzene, styrene, and methanol, along with refined products such as gasoline, diesel and jet fuel. Also, black oil products, such as asphalt, No. 6 fuel oil and coker fuel are other items that are tranported by liquid cargo barges along with pressurized products, like propane, butane, and butadiene.
Speaking of entertainment barges, wouldn’t it be a grand world if you could gamble along the Mississippi River? Well, now you can if you had a laptop and a wireless connection. All you’d have to do is head over to an online casinos and start playing online slots or blackjack and you could be playing from the river, down the river or six feet under.