The Chesapeake and Ohio Railway

By James E. Casto

In the late 1860s, the Chesapeake and Ohio Railway (C&O) pushed its first tracks westward from Virginia's Tidewater region across the mountains into what was then the new state of West Virginia. Ultimately its tracks stretched across a half-dozen states and even into Canada. Appalachian coal was the C&O's primary cargo, but its fast freights carried shipments of all kinds, and its crack passenger trains were marvels of their day. In 1963, the C&O merged with the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad in the first of what would become a wave of railroad mergers. Today the old C&O is part of giant CSX Transportation. Images of Rail: The Chesapeake and Ohio Railway gathers 200 photographs that chronicle the C&O story. Here is a fond look back at its mammoth steam locomotives and the diesels that replaced them, its bustling passenger stations, and much more, including the legendary John Henry, who beat that steam drill, and Chessie, the sleeping kitten that was the C&O's much-loved trademark.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Arcadia Publishing
• Release date: Oct 9, 2006
• ISBN: 9781439617465

James E. Casto

Retired newspaperman James E. Casto of Huntington, West Virginia, has written four previous Arcadia Publishing books. In 2006, the Cabell County Public Library paid tribute to his efforts as an historian by naming its James E. Casto Local History Room in his honor.

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www.cohs.org.

INTRODUCTION

In its heyday, the Chesapeake and Ohio Railway proudly billed itself as George Washington’s Railroad. The C&O’s premier passenger train was named the George Washington, and the nation’s first president frequently appeared in the railway’s advertisements.

George Washington died in 1799, nearly three decades before America saw its first railroad. Nevertheless, the C&O’s claim to Washington as its founder had at least a thread of truth. As a young man, Washington helped survey parts of what was then this country’s frontier, the vast wilderness just over the mountains from Virginia’s Tidewater region. His experience convinced Washington that westward lay opportunity, and so, in 1785, he organized the James River Company, which set about linking east with west. The canals and roads built by the James River Company later became the property of the Richmond and Alleghany Railroad, which would become part of the C&O.

At its height in the 1950s and 1960s, the C&0 would be the product of about 150 smaller rail lines that were incorporated into the system over the years. The first of these was the Louisa Railroad, chartered in 1836. Through successive reorganizations and name changes, the company came to be known as the Chesapeake and Ohio Railroad. Later still another reorganization would change Railroad to Railway.

In 1867, the legislatures of Virginia and West Virginia enacted measures to provide for the completion of a line or lines of railroad from the waters of the Chesapeake to the Ohio River. At the time, the rail line extended from Richmond to Covington, Virginia, a distance of 227 miles.

The all-but-bankrupt railroad desperately needed new capital to extend its track to the Ohio River, so Gen. W. C. Wickham, the C&O’s president, approached Collis P. Huntington, who raised the money needed. Huntington was well known in the growing railroad industry as one of the Big Four partners who had constructed the Central Pacific portion of the transcontinental railroad.

In July 1869, Huntington, who assumed the C&O presidency, traveled with Wickham and Maj. H. D. Whitcomb, the C&O’s chief engineer, to inspect the proposed route to the Ohio. Arriving at the river, Huntington shunned the existing communities and instead picked out a vacant tract of riverbank and there set about building a new town that would be the C&O’s western terminus. Perhaps not surprisingly, he named his new town Huntington.

A wood-burning locomotive, the Greenbrier, was floated down the Ohio River to begin work on the western end of the railroad. Another crew pushed track eastward to Huntington. The two sets of track were linked at Hawk’s Nest, West Virginia, on January 29, 1873.

A train crowded with VIPs was the first to make the 423-mile trip from Richmond to Huntington. On its return trip, the train hauled something far more important than those dignitaries: it hauled four carloads of West Virginia coal. The 23,000 tons of coal moved by the C&O that first year wouldn’t even be a fraction of the incredible tonnages that would follow in the years to come. Coal traffic—originating on a network of branch lines built to the mines—would become the lifeblood of the C&O.

While the link to his new town was under construction, Huntington looked eastward and began quietly buying up tracts of land in Newport News, Virginia, where he envisioned a busy ocean terminal. The C&O tracks were extended to Newport News in 1882, and soon West Virginia coal was flowing overseas.

Huntington saw the C&O as a potential link in a great transcontinental railroad empire, but his hopes were frustrated, and in 1888, he lost control of the C&O to the Morgan and Vanderbilt interests. Huntington would remain the westward terminus of the C&O only briefly. Soon its tracks extended westward from Huntington to Cincinnati, and a connection was also built to Lexington, Kentucky. Absorbing the Hocking Valley gave the C&O entry to Columbus and Toledo, Ohio. Still later, the railroad expanded into Indiana and on to Chicago and the Great Lakes.

Following World War I, the C&O went through several leadership changes, eventually ending up in the hands of Oris P. and Mantis J. Van Sweringen, two brothers who were Cleveland financiers. The Van Sweringens planned to combine the C&O, the Pere Marquette, the Erie, the Nickel Plate, and other lines into one giant railroad. Their plan failed. Nevertheless, the C&O ultimately emerged with control of the Pere Marquette, which operated primarily in Michigan and Ontario.

When the Great Depression forced other railroads into bankruptcy, the C&O not only survived but thrived. Even during the hard times of the Depression, the nation needed coal, and the railway prospered by providing it. It invested those profits in upgrading its roadbed and equipment, an investment that would pay off in a big way when the C&O was tasked with meeting the monumental demands of World War II.

The Depression also saw the debut of one of America’s best-known trademarks: Chessie, the sleeping railroad kitten. Her initial appearance in a 1933 magazine advertisement immediately won her a legion of fans, and even today, Chessie remains popular, with her image on a vast array of items. For many years, the C&O issued Chessie calendars and was hard-pressed to keep up with the public’s requests for them.

From 1942 until 1954, the C&O’s chairman was the flamboyant Robert R. Young, who was determined to shake up not just the C&O but the entire railroad industry. Young launched a crusade against what he saw as mismanagement of the nation’s railroads by banking interests, and he tirelessly campaigned for improved railroad passenger service. In a famous advertisement he personally wrote for the C&O, he complained: A hog can cross the country without changing trains—but you can’t. He changed the C&O’s herald