Tow Boats on the Mississippi River

We were really surprised at how many towboats or pushboats were operating on the river considering that the water was continuing to rise. Years ago we were fortunate enough to take a Rhine River cruise from Amsterdam to Basil Switzerland and there were hundreds of smaller "freighters" actually family liveaboard type barges. These on Mississippi and other major rivers here in the states push as many as 20 barges at one time.

In Vicksburg down on the river there is a display being put together showing these pushboats up close. It appears they draw very little draft and seeing the props you can see how they are able to power the barges around even in shallow water. I don't know how big the engines are but to drive the as many barges as they do they would have to quite powerfull
In viewing this ship its really much bigger than they appear on the water and from the looks of the cabin structure they must have a fair size crew. Passengers maybe?
Another thing I found kind of interesting was how little freeboard (distance from water to deck) there was. If you were ever to go where there was any major wake from another boat it could be quite interesting.!
This boat has obviously been fixed up as it looked like it really should not have been on display but being used on the river. Maybe this is an outdated model of a type not being used anymore. Anyway, this is all on the waterfront in Vicksburg, Mississippi any worth seeing.