Ingram Barge Company Makes Repower Push

An Ingram Barge Company pilot lives on the water, pushing cargo while navigating the more than 4,500 miles of the U.S. Inland Waterways. When Ingram needed to repower their M/V CRYSTAL D. TAYLOR, M/V ROBERT J. BARKER and M/V KIM W. NOWELL towboats, they looked to GE Transportation and distributor National Maintenance & Repair Inc.

GE’s eight-cylinder, 250-millimeter bore inline medium speed (1,000 revolutions per minute) Tier 4 compliant marine diesel engine provides Ingram with more power, faster response time, increased fuel efficiency and proven reliability all with GE’s breakthrough Tier 4 technology which allows Ingram to meet the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) stringent Tier 4 emissions standards without the use of a Selective Catalytic Reduction system (SCR) after-treatment.

“GE’s 1000 RPM non-urea engine solution drove our decision on which engines to choose for the repowers,” said David Sehrt, Ingram’s SVP & Chief Engineering Officer.

Ingram used the Tier 2 version of the 250 series of marine diesel engines to repower the William P. Morelli and the Bill Berry in 2009 and 2011 respectively. Together, the two towboats have approximately 80,000 operating hours of proven reliability.

“We currently have GE engines on two of our repowers and they are reliable,” explained Mark Duley, AVP Motor Vessel Engineering. “We know we can count on GE.”

Two of Ingram’s towboats are currently being retrofitted with the new GE engines, and are expected to be back on the river in August. The third vessel is planned to be completed in the spring of 2017.