A towboat pushes a barge past barges moored at a covered riverside terminal.

Move More, Spend Less.

Reliable slack-water navigation with direct Gulf access and measurable freight efficiency. Manufacturers, ports, and logistics partners use the Tennessee-Tombigbee Waterway and Marine Highway M-65 to lower costs, improve reliability, and reach global markets through the Gulf.

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A freight corridor designed for performance.

Anchored by the Tennessee-Tombigbee Waterway, M-65 delivers a resilient, fully integrated corridor. Four reasons shippers make the switch.

Cost Efficiency

The economics of water freight are simply different. One 8-barge tow carries what about 560 trucks carry.

30–50%

Transportation savings

Versus trucking: an estimated $100 million in annual shipper savings on Tenn-Tom tonnage.

$13.90–17.90

Per-ton savings

Barge savings per ton over rail and truck, compounding across every shipment.

~800 mi

Shorter Gulf routing

Closer to the Gulf for interior U.S. shippers: less transit time, less fuel, less congestion exposure.

Ton-miles per gallon of fuel

Barge: 675
Rail: 472
Truck: 151

More than four times more efficient than highway transport.

A loaded tow rounds a sweeping, sunlit bend of the waterway between wooded banks.

Predictable Performance

A controlled slack-water system means the schedule you plan is the schedule you run.

Controlled slack-water system

A lock-and-dam system maintains consistent water levels year-round: reliable transit in every season.

Efficient lock operations

Twenty-five locks carry traffic from Paducah and Knoxville to the Port of Mobile. On the Tenn-Tom, each of the ten 110 × 600-foot chambers takes an 8-barge tow in one locking, typically in about 20 minutes.

Direct Gulf access

Direct access from inland origins to the Port of Mobile.

Towboats and barges secured side by side inside a Tenn-Tom lock chamber.

9 ft

Drought-resilient by design

The controlled lock-and-dam system holds a guaranteed 9-foot channel and steady pool levels every day of the year: transit certainty shippers can schedule around.

Environmental & Safety Leadership

The lowest-impact way to move bulk freight: for the climate, for communities, and for the people doing the work.

89%

Fewer CO₂ emissions

15.1 tons of CO₂ per million ton-miles vs. 140.7 for trucks.

1:560

Congestion relief

One 8-barge tow replaces up to 560 trucks or 128 rail cars.

2.3 gal

Lowest spill rate

Per million ton-miles by barge, for spills over 1,000 gallons, vs. 5.5 for trucks and 6.6 for rail.

1:1,145

Barge-to-truck injury ratio

For every barge injury, there are 96 rail and 1,145 truck injuries.

Integrated Multimodal Access

Water is the spine; rail, interstate, and air complete the network.

Class I rail

Direct connections to national rail networks serving domestic markets.

Interstate highways

Immediate access to major interstate corridors across the Southeast and Midwest.

Deepwater Gulf access

Seamless connection to Gulf shipping lanes supporting global trade.

Regional & international air

Airports across the corridor support corporate travel, site selection, and time-sensitive logistics.

Sources: National Waterways Foundation / Texas A&M Transportation Institute, A Modal Comparison of Domestic Freight Transportation Effects on the General Public: 2001–2019 (January 2022) · Mississippi State University NSPARC, 2025 Tenn-Tom Economic & Social Impact Study.

Built for the industries that build things.

From steel and chemicals to agriculture and advanced energy, M-65 supports industries that require reliability, capacity, and multimodal access to global markets.

Steel & Metals

Raw materials and finished steel move efficiently by barge, connecting mills to domestic and export markets.

Chemicals & Petrochemicals

Specialized terminals move industrial chemicals safely; barge has the lowest spill rate of any surface mode.

Forest Products

Timber, wood chips, pulp, and lumber move from regional forests to processors and global buyers.

Aggregates & Mining

Sand, gravel, and construction materials transported at scale to major infrastructure projects.

Agriculture

Grain, soybeans, and row crops connect heartland producers to Gulf export facilities.

Energy

Coal, petroleum products, renewable components, and emerging energy infrastructure use the corridor's bulk capacity.

Advanced Manufacturing

Multimodal access and predictable logistics.

Water-Intensive Industries

Hyperscale data centers and other water-intensive operations benefit from authorized industrial water capacity and reliable, controlled water levels.

Ports and terminals along the corridor.

Commercial ports and terminals across the four-state corridor provide multimodal access, specialized commodity handling, and direct connectivity to rail, interstate, and Gulf shipping lanes.