This is not as different and rare as you folks seem to think it is.

Time on the river is 95% boredom and 5% panic. These photos, which I got 5 days ago, definitely represent the latter category.

During the decade I was singing on the rivers I saw something like this at least half a dozen times. It was seeing these embarrassing moments for the pilots that made things "fun".

The most extreme situation I recall was when two diesel locomotives slid off the waterlogged right-of-way and tracks onto a passing towboat. The boat wasn't sunk then either. There was a large hole in the starboard side of the lower deck however. The towboat, whose name I've forgotten, continued to push barges on the Mississippi River near Dubuque, Iowa until the river froze over. The next year, after winter repairs, the boat looked as good as ever except for nicely rendered paintings of the locomotive on both the port and starboard sides of the vessel.

Art Thieme