The 12 boats AEP is keeping are ... (Updated)

Gale R. Rhodes

Boonesboro

Norman L. Snodgrass

Capt. Gerald Boggs

Capt. James Anderson

AEP Future

AEP Legacy

AEP Mariner

Chuck Zebula

Hoosier State

Mountain State

Dan Elder

That means it's keeping seven of the ten new 6,000-hp boats it has put on the river since 2008 and it is selling the Buckeye State, the AEP Leader and the Mike Weisend to ACBL.

It also means AEP is selling all but one of the 2,8-hp 2,800-hp boats it uses on the upper Ohio, mostly north of Point Pleasant WV.

The fact AEP is keeping the Hoosier State will please my youngest, Adam, who as a 10-year-old got to steer the Hoosier State lightboat following its christening ceremony back in May 2010.

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UPDATE

If I read the list correctly there won't be much left of the AEP fleet that I started following in the late 1970s. In the middle part of that decade, AEP bought about a dozen boats, half from Dravo and half from St. Louis Ship, to move coal up and down the river from its terminal at Metropolis IL. AEP had planned to burn a lot of western coal or Illinois Basin coal, but things changed and those boats tended to spend a lot of time tied up at Lakin.

After the sale, all those Dravo boats will be gone and only two St. Louis Ship boats will remain in the AEP fleet.