A little more than nine miles from downtown Pittsburgh in the Ohio River is Neville Island ,
Friends Deb and Sy, residents of the island, are the guest bloggers today- photographs and writing. This blog post is in two parts.
The first is the moment of Zen sent by Deb to me on my phone and the autumn hillside reflected in the Ohio River and the barge and tug capture the feel of where they live on the island. Peaceful and a gorgeous image. Thanks Debbie and Sy for creating the blog post today.
But the day before there was a lot of activity right by their home.
Gigantic Crane Operation Part 2 of the Guest Blog
Sy writes about the crane photos
The photos reveal a crane on a barge that was towed upstream on the
Ohio River, along with an empty barge, from Midland (Beaver County) Pa
to Neville Island. This crane had a large clamshell bucket, weighing,
according to the owner, approx. 8,500 lbs. EMPTY!
This bucket was utilized to clean out silt from our neighbor’s boat garage. It removed four cubic yards of silt at a time which is a lot of silt! Muddy
river water would flow into this calm area. While calm, the silt
would fall out of the water and onto the river bottom in the boat
garage. This boat garage was last cleaned out in a similar fashion
about 11 or 12 years ago. This crew removed approximately 8 to 10 feet
of silt from the river bottom in the boat garage.
Before this calm area was a boat garage, it was part of the storage area for the
upstream gate to a lock on the Ohio River that was constructed in the
late 1890s and decommissioned in the early 1930s when the present
locks went into operation. The steel lock gate was removed and
utilized for scrap metal around the time of WWII.
Additionally, an old, heavy steel barge cover (at least 60 or 70
years old and more than 2000 lbs.) was removed by the crane as the
boat garage only utilized two such covers and this third cover was
deteriorating and not really needed. All of this work was accomplished
in about 4 hours.”
Photographed Tuesday morning from the Duquesne Incline Platform. No one else was there
I’d seen the fog over city as I crossed Liberty Bridge. It had lifted when I arrived after my drive.
I’d gotten the call that my iPad was ready for pick up after being repaired. It’s been there for weeks. To get it or not was the question. I paid over the phone and only Shannon was there working as they Tastar Data Systems opened Tuesday morning at 9. I debated whether I should drive over to Library Road or not but decided to have the iPad at home in my possession again. Face timing family and friends.
Sheltering in place makes you appreciate what one took for granted before. Running errands.
Our three rivers.
Allegheny River and the Monongahela River meet at the Point to form the Ohio River.
There’s a stop light at the end of the bridge. When it was red, this was my vantage point of the city. Then I was joined by the silver car in the left lane.
(My Six Word Saturday see Debbie Smyth’s Travel With Intent blog)
I was looking for a Throwback Thursday photo and found this black and white shot of the city at night. Light Up Night is in November, the Friday before Thanksgiving and you can see the effort to light up the city with every available watt. I’m pretty sure I could take a better image now so will try to retake this coming November 2019.
These past few days driving around the city I’ve seen a lot of freight trains. I pulled over to the curb in the Strip District by the junkyard to catch the Wheeling Lake Erie cars overhead. And while visiting at my friend’s house I love to watch the tugboats push the barges on the Ohio River. The tanker truck was in front of me on the RDFleming Bridge while at a red light. Lots of demolition on the hillside there, too. Right now, as I write this post just before bed, I can hear the train whistle repeat itself loudly in the night.
It had been raining steadily the last couple of days. I mean HEAVY rain. Here is the result of the downpour and all the melted ice and snow.Allegheny River where the road should be,no visible walkway by PNC Park . West End Bridge
But the day before there was a lot of activity right by their home.The crane arrives
Removing the covers
And there they go
Allegheny River where the road should be,
no visible walkway by PNC Park . 
West End Bridge 
Preparing for winter
