AEP River Operations
For eight years, I worked for a company called AEP River Operations. It was previously called MEMCO (“Marine Equipment Management Company”). The name changed when it was purchased by AEP (“American Electric Power”) out of Ohio. The purpose of River Ops (what we called the company internally) was to move products on barges up and down the Mississippi River and Ohio River. For AEP, they bought us to guarantee the delivery of coal to their electrical power plants along the Ohio River. The River Ops corporate headquarters was in Chesterfield, Missouri. The Mississippi River is about a 30 minute drive from there.
New Employee Task
I was hired into the I.T. Department to support a financial software product called Epicor, develop SQL databases, and maintain business applications. My supervisor, Scott, gave me a list of tasks that he wanted each of his new hire to complete. Some where to get more familiar with the company by talking to personnel in various departments. One task was to experience what it was like to be on a boat and push a tow up or down the river. Since I had access to the logistics software that helped run the daily operations of the company, I kept my eye on when a boat would stop in the St. Louis, Missouri area. They were not going to change any work orders just for me to get on the boat so I had to fit my time into THEIR schedule. I bought a pair of steel toed boots, which had to be worn on the boat. I also requisitioned a floating vest and helmet.
About the River Transportation Industry
Barges are grouped in a grid-like pattern called a ‘tow’, and pushed by tug boats (sounds wrong, but that’s how it works!). In the upper Mississippi region and on rivers that contain locks, tows cannot be configured to be more than three wide, by 5 long. In the lower Mississippi where the river is much wider, there could be 50+ barges in a tow!
River Ops owned about 100 boats that mainly worked the Mississippi River and Ohio River. They would ship fertilizer to the norther states in the spring and crop products to the gulf in the fall. The operation is 24-hours / day. Employees on the boat work 6 hours on; 6 hours off, around the clock. Even though they could see the shore, they are not allowed to get off the boat for a month. Then they get two weeks off of leisure time. At different times and places along the river, supplies and mail would be transported to the boat by other boats specifically used for that purpose.
The job of a deckhand is fit for a young guy with no family or just starting out in a mariner career. The most experienced deckhand is called the ‘first mate’. Building a tow is the most strenuous task because you are up against time and you have are constantly pulling cables and tying ropes. It doesn’t matter what the weather is, you need to be out in it building up or breaking down a tow when the time comes. This could be followed by days of waiting around, doing nothing, until the tow reaches its destination. I found this article to be very true from what I saw and learned about jobs on the river.
Boat Ride Preparation
A week or two went by, but I could not find the right scenario for a boat I wanted to get on. Then I noticed the “Noble C. Parsonage” (named after an executive in the company), was going to be building a tow in St. Louis in a couple of days, on a Saturday. I worked with a dispatcher to make the arrangements:
Dispatcher to Paul: I think it will be best to get you on the Noble C. They are at mile 83 N/B turning StL( Mile 178). They will then stop mile 136 S/B.
Paul to Dispatcher: Noble C. sounds find. Let me know what I need to do and when. I will be at Eagle Fleet at the time you suggest. I will have my AEP badge, steel-toe boots, life jacket and helmet.
Paul To Elaine (wife): Here is how it is playing out: The Noble C. Parsonage will be in St. Louis after midnight, tonight. It will be taking over the tow currently attached to the David Fields, which is heading south to St. Louis and won’t get in until about 3am. Since they don’t have to break up the tow, it will not be long after 3am that the Noble will head south. Apparently my get-off destination is Kellogg at mile 125, which is right near St. Genevieve. Trip will be 45 ‘river miles’, which might put us there Sat. afternoon. Maybe you can take the GPS receiver and when I get near shore, I can have you plug in the coordinates to find me!
I called to make arrangements for me to be taken to the boat from the shore of the Mississippi. The earliest supply boat was leaving shore about 4am. I had Elaine drive me to a boat yard. The supply boat approached shore, loaded up and left without me! I went back to the boat yard office and mentioned it. They had the boat come back to get me. The atmosphere wasn’t very cordial. I was just another piece of cargo to them. They pulled up, I jumped on, and away we went.
Waiting for Tow to be Built
It was about a 5 minute ride to the boat I was to get on, although I could see it from shore. The Parsonage was anchored to one side of the river with a partial tow already built. After attaching a couple more barges, we sat and waited for the final barge to arrive from upstream. And waited. And waited. By the time the barge arrived, I had been waiting on the boat for 15 hours! I mostly sat in the pilothouse and talked to the crew members as they came and went. I was allowed to roam the boat and take pictures. I could walk on the tow, itself, but had to be escorted by one of the deck hands. I got a tour of the galley, the sleeping quarters, and the engine room.
Jobs on the Boat
The Parsonage was one of the oldest boats in the fleet, built in 1974. It would have been nice to be on a more modern boat, but I didn’t have the luxury of getting scheduled on one. When the diesel engine is idling, the boat is in constant vibration. The engine room was very clean, but so noisy that you have to wear ear protection. It contains two diesel motors. One is almost always running, while the other can be maintained while shut down. The engineer was changing the oil in one of them when I was visiting.
Each crew member had their own sleeping quarters. The shared lounge had a workout machine, desk, couch, TV, stereo.
Contrary to what you might think, there is no steering ‘wheel’ on the boat. Its rudder and throttle are controlled by levers that sit to the side of the pilot in the pilothouse. The pilot uses radar and GPS to see his current position and help steer the vessel. Using sonar, he can see the dredged river channel maintained by the U. S. Army Corps of Engineers. Even from his vantage point, high up in the pilothouse, he cannot see the front of the tow. There is technology where cameras can be put at the front of the tow, but River Ops did not have it. The pilot has a computer sitting next to him that communicates with headquarters using cell and satellite transmissions to determine what his ‘orders’ are. At night the pilot uses a powerful spotlight to shine on the tow and shore to see what is going on.
I was told I came at a good time. Saturday was ‘steak day’. The crew was always fed well. The cook reports directly to the captain and is well paid. The cook is at the same company reporting level as the pilot and first-mate. I was also there at a time that a deckhand was being trained to be a pilot. He and his wife had just had a baby. Because of the work rules, he was only allowed to call his wife. He had to physically stay on the boat another 3 weeks until his rotation was done.
Let’s Roll!
Now that we had a complete tow built, we could head down the river. It’s destination was New Orleans, LA, but due to the delay, there was no way I would be able to ride it all the way. It would take many, agonizingly slow days to get there at 12 miles an hour.
Looking for an Exit
After a few hours, we were a few miles down the Mississippi River and I had to get off. There was a boat from another company that was going to peel off one of the barges in our tow. It was arranged for me to get on that boat. It would then drop me off on the shore. I thought once I transferred they would drop me off right away, but like I said before, a barge company does not change orders just for someone insignificant like me! I had to wait another couple hours in the new boat’s pilot cabin until they completed their task.
Finally, the boat’s tow work was done and they headed to shore to let me off. It was the middle of the night. The boat happened to be near a cement quarry, called ‘Brickeys Hollow’, north of Ste. Genevieve, Missouri. I called Elaine to give her the general location to pick me up with the car. She would have to take an unfamiliar dirt road, in total darkness, by herself, toward the river until she came upon a gate and wait for me. A guy from the quarry drove me to the gate in a pickup truck. I had heard of others who were let off on the river bank and had to scramble through brush in order to get back to civilization!
I was so happy for the ‘experience’ to be over. I took the next day off from work to process the photos. All-in-all, it was very interesting. I met some nice people and learned about the barge business.
NOTE: In 2016, AEP sold River Ops to a barge industry competitor, ACBL. I was subsequently laid off. But the severance pay was great!
Additional Photos
