Is the Chesapeake and Ohio Railway still active?
Chesapeake and Ohio 1309
Chesapeake & Ohio Railway 1309 is a steam locomotive built in 1949 for the Chesapeake and Ohio Railway (C&O) where it pulled coal trains until retirement in 1956. It was the last steam engine built by Baldwin Locomotive Works for the North American market. In 1976, it was moved to the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad Museum for static display. The engine was purchased in 2014 by the Western Maryland Scenic Railroad which began restoration with the intention of returning it to service as the Western Maryland Scenic Railroad 1309.
Youngstown and Southeastern Railroad
The trackage was originally owned by the Youngstown and Southern Railway , which operated from 1904 to 1993, including a period as an electric interurban passenger railway between 1907 and 1948, being the last such line in Ohio. It was later jointly owned by the Pennsylvania Railroad and Pittsburgh and Lake Erie Railroad. After a local company bought the line in November 1996 and illegally closed it and blocked repairs, the line was out of service for almost five years until the Central Columbiana and Pennsylvania Railway began operations in May 2001. Service under the YSRR name started in 2006, after the second of two less-than-two-year periods of operation by the Ohio Central Railroad System component Ohio and Pennsylvania Railroad (the first was in 1995 and 1996).
Ohio River and Western Railroad
The Ohio River & Western Railroad was a narrow gauge railway that was incorporated in 1875 and operated from 1877 or 1878 till 1931. The railroad was located in southeastern Ohio. The line ran from Bellaire (east point) to Zanesville (west end). The last train to run on the railroad was on Memorial Day, May 30, 1931.
Charleston, West Virginia
Historically, until the 1960s, several daily Chesapeake and Ohio Railway trains traversed central West Virginia, making stops in Charleston. Destinations in the Mid-West included St. Louis, Chicago, Detroit and Louisville. To the east the trains terminated in either Washington, D.C. or Newport News, Virginia. These featured the "Fast Flying Virginian," "George Washington," and the "Sportsman." Into the late 1940s, the New York Central Railroad operated passenger trains between Columbus, Ohio and Charleston.
Chesapeake and Ohio Depot (Catlettsburg, Kentucky)
The last C&O trains on the "Big Sandy" ran in 1958, ending passenger service to Catlettsburg, although some intercity trains continued to pass. A clause in the original deed required the property to revert to the heirs of its original owners; the heirs declined, and the property was instead transferred to the city. The freight house burned in 1964.
Baltimore Steam Packet Company
On June 14, 1941, the Baltimore Steam Packet Company's owner, the Seaboard Air Line Railroad, entered into an agreement with a consortium of railroads and steamship companies to merge the Chesapeake Steamship Company into the Old Bay Line. The railroad group, consisting of the Atlantic Coast Line Railroad, Southern Railway, and the SAL, together controlled the Baltimore Steam Packet Company and the Chesapeake Steamship Company. As a result, the Old Bay Line took over the Chesapeake Line's business and assets and became the sole operator of passenger and freight steamship transportation between the important ports of Baltimore and Norfolk. As part of this agreement, half of the outstanding shares of the Baltimore Steam Packet Company was assigned to Chesapeake Steamship Company, which was one-third owned by Southern Railway and two-thirds owned by the Atlantic Coast Line Railroad. With the amalgamation, two of the Chesapeake Line's steamboats, the "City of Norfolk" and "City of Richmond", were transferred to the Old Bay Line. As it turned out, these would be the last two vessels operated by the Old Bay Line when it went out of business in 1962. Robert E. Dunn was named president of the Old Bay Line in 1941, remaining at the helm of the company to the end of service in 1962.
Chesapeake, Ohio and Southwestern Railroad
It connected with the Owensboro and Nashville Railway (subsequently part of the L&N network) at Central City in Muhlenberg County.
Wappocomo (Romney, West Virginia)
In 1991, the Potomac Eagle Scenic Railroad began operating on the South Branch Valley Railroad in 1991, running between Wappocomo Station and Petersburg via The Trough. Its principal depot is Wappocomo Station, located on the Wappocomo farm; the station consists of a ticket office housed in a red 1940 Baltimore and Ohio Railroad caboose, numbered C2507; the caboose is owned by the Chesapeake and Ohio Historical Society and leased by the Potomac Eagle Scenic Railroad.
Chesapeake Western Railway
In 1938 the line was bought by the line's general manager, Don Thomas, with the help of Norfolk and Western, which assumed direct control in 1954. In 1942, the Baltimore and Ohio's Valley Road of Virginia line, which ran between Harrisonburg and Lexington, Virginia was purchased, though the portion from Staunton, Virginia to Lexington was promptly dismantled. Later, a portion of the same line to the north of Harrisonburg as far as Mount Jackson, Virginia was added.
Chesapeake (train)
Service began on May 1, 1978, with funding from the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and the State of Maryland; a demonstration trip ran from Philadelphia to Bowie on April 30. BWI Rail Station was added to the service when it opened in October 1980. From February 4, 1980 to October 25, 1981, the "Chesapeake" was extended from 30th Street to Suburban Station.
Blue Ridge Tunnel
The Blue Ridge Railroad ceased to exist once the route across the mountains was completed, becoming a part of the Virginia Central Railroad. In 1868 the Virginia Central was merged with another state-chartered railroad, the Covington and Ohio Railroad, to create the Chesapeake and Ohio Railroad (renamed Chesapeake and Ohio Railway in 1878). This helped achieve Virginia's long-term goal of linking its navigable rivers of the Chesapeake Bay watershed with the Ohio River. The C&O Railroad was subsequently sold to Collis Potter Huntington.
Deepwater Railway
William N. Page, a civil engineer and entrepreneur, had begun a small logging railroad in Fayette County in 1896, sometimes called the Loup Creek and Deepwater Railway. It extended from an interchange at Deepwater with the Chesapeake and Ohio Railway (C&O) on the south bank of the navigable Kanawha River up a steep grade into the mountainous terrain southward, following the winding Loup Creek to reach a sawmill at Robson which was owned by the Loup Creek Estate. It was operated by the C&O under a verbal agreement.
Moonville, Ohio
With the town long gone, the train traffic continued to increase on the single track line. In 1973 the B&O merged with the Chesapeake and Ohio Railway (C&O) and the Western Maryland Railway (WM) to form the Chessie System. Train traffic doubled, with as many as 14 trains per day.
Chesapeake and Ohio Depot (St. Albans, West Virginia)
St. Albans Chesapeake and Ohio Railroad Depot, also known as St. Albans Depot, is a historic railroad depot located at St. Albans, Kanawha County, West Virginia. It was built in 1906 by the Chesapeake and Ohio Railroad. It has a 1 1/2 story central block with one story wings and a hipped roof. It originally had a square watch tower. The frame building is clad in clapboard siding. The station closed about 1963 and remained vacant until the city purchased the land from CSX Transportation in 1991 and CSX donated the station.
Ohio and Mississippi Railway
The Ohio and Mississippi Railway (earlier the Ohio and Mississippi Rail Road), abbreviated O&M, was a railroad operating between Cincinnati, Ohio, and East St. Louis, Illinois, from 1857 to 1893.
Valley, West Virginia
In 1972, the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad was merged into the Chessie System, which planned to close and abandon the South Branch line. The Romney spur through Depot Valley remained in service and was illustrated by the United States Geological Survey on its 1973 Romney Quadrangle topographic map. On October 11, 1978, the Chessie System transferred ownership of the South Branch line to the South Branch Valley Railroad, which in turn was owned and operated by the West Virginia State Rail Authority. During this transition, the Romney spur of the South Branch Valley Railroad was abandoned, after which all rail and commercial activity at Valley ceased.
Chesapeake and Ohio Railway
Miles (kilometres) of road operated at year end: C&O 2635 (4241), HV 349 (562), PM 2305 (3710) in 1925; C&O 3076 (4950), PM 1949 (3137) in 1944; C&O 5067 (8155) in 1970.
Baltimore, Chesapeake and Atlantic Railway
The venture was not successful as in August 29, 1894, the B&ES railroad was liquidated in a judicial sale and reorganized as the Baltimore, Chesapeake and Atlantic Railway Company.
Ohio Central Railroad (1988)
The Ohio Central Railroad is a part of the Ohio Central Railroad System, operating a former Wheeling and Lake Erie Railway line between Warwick and Zanesville, Ohio, United States. Operations began in 1988. It has several connection with tracks on which CSX Transportation has trackage rights.
Ohio Electric Railway
The Ohio Electric Railway was an interurban railroad formed in 1907 with the consolidation of 14 smaller interurban railways. It was Ohio's largest interurban, connecting Toledo, Lima, Dayton, Columbus, and Cincinnati. At its peak it operated of track. Never financially healthy, the company went bankrupt in 1921 and was dissolved into its constituent companies.
Chesapeake and Ohio Canal
In 1828, the C&O Canal and the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad (B&O) began fighting for sole use of the narrow strip of available land along the Potomac River from Point of Rocks to Harpers Ferry. After a Maryland state court battle that involved Daniel Webster and Roger B. Taney, the companies agreed to share the right-of-way.
Covington and Ohio Railroad
The railroad was never formally incorporated. Instead, it became part of the Chesapeake and Ohio Railway in 1868. Under the leadership of Williams Carter Wickham and Collis P. Huntington, it opened to through traffic in 1873.
Chesapeake and Ohio Railway
C&O's passenger services ended in 1971 with the formation of Amtrak. Today Amtrak's tri-weekly "Cardinal" passenger train follows the historic and scenic route of the C&O through the New River Gorge in one of the more rugged sections of the Mountain State. The rails of the former C&O also continue to transport intermodal and freight traffic, as well as West Virginia bituminous coal east to Hampton Roads and west to the Great Lakes as part of CSXT, a Fortune 500 company which was one of seven Class I railroads operating in North America at the beginning of the 21st century.
Hocking Valley Railway
The Hocking Valley Railway was a railroad in the U.S. state of Ohio, with a main line from Toledo to Athens and Pomeroy via Columbus. It also had several branches to the coal mines of the Hocking Valley near Athens. The company became part of the Chesapeake and Ohio Railway system in 1910, and the line between Toledo and Columbus continues to see trains as CSX Transportation's Columbus Subdivision. Portions of the main line south of Columbus are now operated by the Indiana and Ohio Railway and Hocking Valley Scenic Railway.
Chesapeake and Ohio Railway
Under Watkins' leadership, Chessie System then merged with Seaboard Coast Line Industries, holding company for Seaboard Coast Line Railroad and several other great railroads of the Southeast (including Louisville and Nashville Railroad, Clinchfield Railroad and others) to form CSX Corporation, with Chessie and SCL as its leading subsidiaries. Watkins became CEO of the merged company.
Chesapeake and Ohio Railway
C&O continued to be one of the more profitable and financially sound railways in the United States, and in 1963, under the guidance of Cyrus S. Eaton, helped start the modern merger era by "affiliating" with the Baltimore & Ohio. The two lines' services, personnel, motive power and rolling stock, and facilities were gradually integrated. Under the leadership of Hays T. Watkins Jr., the C&O, B&O and Western Maryland Railway became Chessie System, formally adopting a name that had been used colloquially for the C&O itself, after the mascot kitten used in ads since 1933.
Port Huron and Detroit Railroad
On December 13, 1984, the Port Huron & Detroit Railroad was sold by the Duffy family, who owned it since 1922, to the Chesapeake & Ohio Railroad (at that time controlled by CSX Corp.). The locomotive used on the last train, number 60, was pulled in to the Port Huron roundhouse that evening for a closing ceremony and farewell party. The sale was initiated by the 1981 death of James Duffy, Jr., whose son, James Duffy III who was living in New York, chose to sell the majority stake in the company he had inherited to Chessie System; the sale was approved by the Interstate Commerce Commission in September 1984. CSX Transportation Co. still owns and operates the ex-Port Huron & Detroit Railroad trackage from Port Huron to the City of St. Clair but runs it as part of its operations and not as a separate railroad.
Glen Wilton, Virginia
An act approved by the General Assembly of Virginia, March 27, 1876, entitled Buchannan and Clifton Forge Railway Company to incorporate and enabled James River and Kanawha Canal Company to subscribe to the capital stock. It was proposed to construct a railway from the James River and Kanawha Canal at or near Buchannan to the Chesapeake and Ohio Railroad at or near Clifton Forge. By 1884,it had become the Alleghany and Richmond Railroad, and shortly afterward, the Chesapeake and Ohio Railway Company, and is now known as CSX. In May 1932, telegraph service was discontinued. Service from the four passenger/mail trains, No. 9 and No. 10 which went to and from Richmond daily and No. 32 and No. 33 which went to and from Lynchburg daily, was discontinued October 1957. Subsequently, the Glen Wilton combination station was closed and removed October 1962.
List of CSX Transportation lines
CSX Transportation owns and operates a vast network of rail lines in the United States east of the Mississippi River. In addition to the major systems which merged to form CSX - the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, Chesapeake and Ohio Railway, Louisville and Nashville Railroad, Atlantic Coast Line Railroad and Seaboard Air Line Railroad - it also owns major lines in the Northeast acquired from the 1998 breakup of Conrail.
Chesapeake and Ohio Railway
The Chesapeake and Ohio Railway never spent lavishly on streamlined passenger trains, or passenger service in general, opting to put most of its resources into moving coal and freight in general. However, it did have a number of well known passenger trains including the "George Washington", "Fast Flying Virginian", "Sportsman", "Pere Marquette", and "Resort Special". While the "George Washington" was the railroad's flagship, the "Fast Flying Virginian" (which connected Washington, D.C. and Newport News) and the "Resort Special" were also well-traveled trains on the system. Much of the reason for the popularity of C&O's passenger trains was because of Chessie, the sleeping kitten, one of the most successful and fondly remembered marketing campaigns ever developed. Chessie was so popular when she debuted in 1933 that the C&O could not keep enough merchandise in stock.
C&amp;O Railroad Bridge
The bridge was originally built between 1886 and 1889 by a predecessor of the Chesapeake and Ohio Railway. The bridge cost $3,348,675, an enormous sum. By 1929 it was obsolete, and a replacement was built on extended piers immediately adjacent to the original structure. This new bridge was given the same name as the original and is still in use, carrying the CSX Railroad (the C&O's successor) across the river. The original bridge was sold to the Commonwealth of Kentucky and retrofitted as an automobile bridge. In 1970 that converted original bridge was pulled off its piers by two tug boats thus falling into the Ohio River below , the northern pier was extended, and the Clay Wade Bailey Bridge was built on that and the remaining preexisting piers.
Chesapeake and Ohio 2716
After operating on a test run on October 10 and 11, 1981, 2716 pulled its first Southern Railway excursions on October 17 and 18, running round-trip from Chattanooga to Rockwood, Tennessee. In November, the 2716 pulled excursions in Georgia and Alabama. Beginning in April 1982, the locomotive resumed its excursion duties, pulling trains through Alabama, Tennessee, Georgia, North Carolina, and Virginia. But three months later, it was discovered that the locomotive's firebox was cracked, (due to a very inexperienced fireman) which forced No. 2716 to be taken out of excursion service for repairs, and Nickel Plate Road No. 765, another 2-8-4, based in Indiana, was called into service as 2716’s replacement. Following the merger between the Southern Railway and the Norfolk and Western to form the Norfolk Southern, No. 2716 was retired in favor of Norfolk and Western class J No. 611 serving as the main motive power for the steam program.
Chesapeake and Ohio class M-1
The Chesapeake and Ohio class M-1 was a fleet of three steam turbine locomotives built by the Baldwin Locomotive Works for the Chesapeake and Ohio Railway in 1947–1948 for service on the "Chessie" streamliner. As diesel locomotives became more prevalent following World War II, the C&O was one of several railroads loath to abandon coal as a fuel source, and saw steam turbine technology as a possible alternative to diesel. At the time of its construction it was the longest single-unit locomotive in the world.
Philadelphia and Baltimore Central Railroad
Following the PC bankruptcy, ownership of the line went to Conrail, and then to the Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority (SEPTA), which leased the operable section to short-line freight railroad companies. The Octoraro Railway provided service between Oxford and Chadds Ford Junction from 1977 to 1994, while also operating the ex-Reading Wilmington & Northern branch through a connection at the latter place. In succession, the Delaware Valley Railway, the Brandywine Valley Railroad, and the Morristown & Erie Railway operated the line between 1994 and 2004. The East Penn Railroad bought the line from SEPTA in 2004, and currently operates between Nottingham, Pennsylvania and Chadds Ford Junction. SEPTA has retained ownership of the derelict Chadds Ford-Wawa section.
Frederick, Maryland
Frederick had easy access to the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal, which began operations in 1831 and continued hauling freight until 1924. Also in 1831, the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad (B&O) completed its Frederick Branch line from the Frederick (or Monocacy) Junction off the main Western Line from Baltimore to Harpers Ferry, Cumberland, and the Ohio River. The railroad reached Chicago and St. Louis by the 1850s.
Chesapeake Beach railway station
The station was originally opened as a stop along the railway when Otto Mears sought to create a resort town at the Chesapeake Bay between Baltimore and Washington, D.C. Mears and his business associates established hotels, beaches, casinos and a boardwalk. On June 9, 1900, the first train arrived at the station. However, 35 years later, the Great Depression and the growing popularity of cars led to a decline in business. The last train left the station on April 15, 1935.
List of Chesapeake and Ohio locomotives
Locomotives operated by the Chesapeake and Ohio Railway.
Gulf and Ohio Railways
In June 2001 Gulf & Ohio terminated operations on the Mississippi Delta railroad as the line was turned over to local interests - ending the G&O presence in Mississippi. During the same period, the Three Notch Railroad began operations over part of the Alabama & Florida regained by Gulf & Ohio after being sold in 1992. Also in 2001, the Southern Alabama Railroad was acquired and renamed the Conecuh Valley Railroad.
Chesapeake and Ohio Railway
To finish its line across the mountainous territory of the Alleghany Plateau (known in old Virginia as the "Transmountaine"), the Commonwealth again chartered a state-subsidized railroad called the Covington and Ohio Railroad, authorized by the General Assembly in 1853. This company completed important grading work on the Alleghany grade and did considerable work on numerous tunnels over the mountains and in the west. It also did a good deal of roadway work around Charleston on the Kanawha River. Then the American Civil War intervened, and work was stopped on the westward expansion.
Chesapeake (train)
On January 1, 1983, Conrail was relieved of its obligation to run commuter service. Commuter service in Pennsylvania was merged into SEPTA Regional Rail, and MDOT contracted with Amtrak to run other Washington-Baltimore commuter trips. The "Chesapeake" was discontinued on October 30, 1983 and replaced by an unnamed Washington–Baltimore train. Commuter rail service is now provided over the former route of the "Chesapeake"excepting the segment between Perryville and Newark by the SEPTA Wilmington/Newark Line and MARC Penn Line.
Washington and Old Dominion Railroad
During the 1940s, the W&OD Railroad converted all of its lines' operations from electric to diesel or gasoline power. the railroad discontinued its electrified passenger service in 1941, but temporarily resumed passenger service during World War II using gas-electric motor cars and cars pulled by diesel-electric locomotives. Passenger and mail service finally ended in 1951; thereafter, the railroad carried only freight. The Chesapeake and Ohio Railway (C&O) purchased the W&OD Railroad in 1956, but did not change the railroad's name.
Chesapeake Beach Railway
The Chesapeake Beach Railway (CBR), now defunct, was an American railroad of southern Maryland and Washington, DC built in the 19th century. The CBR ran 27.629 miles from Washington, D.C. on tracks formerly owned by the Southern Maryland Railroad and then on its own single track through Maryland farm country to a resort at Chesapeake Beach. It was built by Otto Mears, a Colorado railroad builder, who planned a shoreline resort with railroad service from Washington and Baltimore. It served Washington and Chesapeake Beach for almost 35 years, but the Great Depression and the rise of the automobile marked the end of the CBR. The last train left the station on April 15, 1935. Parts of the right-of-way are now used for roads and a future rail trail.
Charlottesville and Albemarle Railway
Charlottesville gained its first railroad in 1850, when the Virginia Central Railroadformerly the Louisa Railroadarrived as it progressed westward towards the Blue Ridge Mountains. The Orange and Alexandria Railroad, chartered in 1848, entered into a contract in the early 1850s with the Virginia Central to use the Virginia Central's track from Gordonsville to Charlottesville for its extension southward towards Lynchburg. This line began operations to Charlottesville in April 1854. Thus, two major railroadsthe Virginia Central in an east-west direction and the Orange and Alexandria in a north-south directionconverged at Charlottesville, ensuring the town's prosperity. In 1868, the Virginia Central was reorganized with the Covington and Ohio Railroad to form the Chesapeake and Ohio Railroad, which was renamed as the Chesapeake and Ohio Railway (C&O) in 1878. After a series of mergers, the Orange and Alexandria Railroad was incorporated into the newly formed Southern Railway in 1894. Charlottesville became a significant junction of the two railroads, with two railroad stations in operation. One was on the C&O line and the second, the Union Station, was just west of the C&O station at the junction between the C&O and Southern railroads.
Oldtown, Maryland
The Chesapeake and Ohio Canal reached Cumberland, Maryland, from Georgetown (Washington, D.C.) in 1850, passing Oldtown at milepost 166.5. The Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, located just across the Potomac from Oldtown, had reached Cumberland eight years earlier. The canal finally closed operations as a carrier in 1924 due to flood damage. The B&O Railroad, now CSX, continues to be a major carrier, and it is used daily by Amtrak's "Capitol Limited" between Washington, DC and Chicago.
Chesapeake and Ohio 1309
The railroad announced in November 2017 that restoration had stopped. $400,000 provided by the state of Maryland had been spent and the railroad estimated it would take at least $530,000 more to complete the restoration, including $120,000 for the running gear and $115,000 for the boiler. The railroad was soliciting donations from individuals, seeking additional grants, and raising money with "freight photo charters".
Peninsula Extension
Opening at the outset of the final quarter of the 19th century, the Chesapeake and Ohio Railway (C&O) was the fulfillment of a long-held goal of Virginians.
Virginia Central Railroad
After the war, both longtime president Edmund Fontaine and former Confederate General Williams Carter Wickham served as president of the Virginia Central and oversaw its expansion towards Covington. The Chesapeake and Ohio Railroad was formed in 1868 from the merger of the Virginia Central Railroad and the Covington and Ohio Railroad, and had expanded westward to the Ohio River by 1873 after new financing from Collis P. Huntington was recruited. The new railroad (reorganized as the Chesapeake and Ohio Railway in 1878) expanded eastward in the 1880s via the Peninsula Subdivision to Newport News. The Chesapeake and Ohio operated for over one hundred years until it was reorganized through merger as CSX Transportation in the 1980s. Today, CSX, Amtrak, and the Buckingham Branch Railroad still use portions of the old Virginia Central line for freight and passenger rail service.
Chesapeake and Indiana Railroad
The Chesapeake and Indiana is mostly used for transporting grain from rural elevators to the mainline railroad systems. The railroad interchanges with Norfolk Southern at Thomaston and CSX at Wellsboro. The railroad moved only 700 cars on startup in 2004, and with hard work and good customer service, they have increased that to 3,000 cars in 2011, and that number is expected to grow in the coming years. When the railroad first started, the only connection with a class one was in Wellsboro, IN with the CSX. The C&I and NS soon build a connection in Thomaston to allow more cars per year and competitive shipping rates between the 2 class one's.
Winchester and Potomac Railroad
Following the war, in 1866, control of the railroad was returned to the company and stock holders, who decided to lease the right–of-way to the B&O Railroad. In 1870 the new Winchester and Strasburg Railroad was built, which connected Harpers Ferry to the Manassas Gap Railroad at Strasburg, enabling a connection southwest up the Shenandoah Valley to Harrisonburg. Eventually the Baltimore & Ohio "purchased the Winchester & Potomac" and "constructed a line the length of the Valley" to Lexington, where it joined a spur of the Chesapeake and Ohio Railroad. Throughout the Reconstruction era, northern railroad companies were able to charter new lines and construct railroads that connected the entire Shenandoah Valley north into Pennsylvania, and south into Tennessee and North Carolina.
Chesapeake and Ohio 1308
While 1308 is a very modern locomotive, with roller bearings, mechanical lubricators, stoker, and superheater, it was the last of a series of 2-6-6-2s that the C&O began in 1911. A very similar design, the USRA 2-6-6-2 was chosen by the United States Railroad Administration as one of its standard designs thirty years earlier during World War I. The advantage of the design was that it could be used on the relatively light, tightly curved, branch lines in West Virginia and Kentucky coal country, and that's where it worked for its seven-year working life, making the two-hour run from Peach Creek, near Logan, West Virginia to the Ohio River at Russell, Kentucky with an occasional trip to Hinton, West Virginia. Its use in heavy mountain railroading is emphasized by its two cross compound air compressors mounted on the smokebox door to supply enough air for frequent heavy braking.
Chesapeake and Ohio Railway
Young got control of the C&O through the remnants of the Van Sweringen companies, in 1942, and for the next decade he became ""the gadfly of the rails"," as he challenged old methods of financing and operating railroads. He regarded himself as a crusader against the mismanagement of railroads by banking interests. Young's most famous advertisement slogan was ""A hog can cross the country without changing trains - but you can't.""
Chesapeake and Ohio Railway
Also in 1910, C&O interests bought control of the Kanawha and Michigan (K&M) and Hocking Valley Railway (HV) lines in Ohio, with a view to connecting with the Great Lakes through Columbus. Eventually anti-trust laws forced C&O to abandon its K&M interests, but it was allowed to retain the Hocking Valley, which operated about in Ohio, including a direct line from Columbus to the port of Toledo, and numerous branches southeast of Columbus in the Hocking Coal Fields. But there was no direct connection with the C&O's mainline, now hauling previously undreamed-of quantities of coal. To get its coal up to Toledo and into Great Lakes shipping, C&O contracted with its rival Norfolk & Western to carry trains from Kenova. W. Va. to Columbus. N&W, however, limited this business and the arrangement was never satisfactory.
Chesapeake and Ohio Depot (Pikeville, Kentucky)
The Chesapeake and Ohio Railway reached Pikeville in 1907. The depot is a one-story brick structure built in the Classical Revival style of architecture. About from the depot is a small, similarly designed baggage station. At one point, the depot and baggage station were connected by a canopy, which has since been removed.
Chesapeake and Ohio 2716
Donated to the Kentucky Railway Museum in 1959, No. 2716 has been restored to operation for excursion service twice since its retirement from the C&O. First for the Southern Railway dressed up as a fictitious "Southern Railway No. 2716", and again in 1996 for a few brief excursions in Indiana. Today, the locomotive is undergoing restoration to for a third excursion career under lease by the Kentucky Steam Heritage Corporation.
Chesapeake and Ohio 1309
Chesapeake & Ohio Railway 1309 was built by Baldwin Locomotive Works in 1949. It was the last Class 1 mainline locomotive built by Baldwin, closing out more than 100 years of production, a total of more than 70,000 locomotives. It was ordered by the Chesapeake and Ohio Railway to pull heavy coal trains in the mountainous terrain of West Virginia and Kentucky which it did from 1949 until 1956, after which it was stored for twenty years at their roundhouse at Peach Creek, West Virginia. The engine, along with several others, all considered impractical to restore to working condition, were moved to the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad Museum in Baltimore, Maryland in 1976 for cosmetic restoration and static display. It remained there until 2014 when it was purchased by the Western Maryland Scenic Railroad for restoration. When returned to service, it will be the largest steam engine in regular scheduled service in the United States. The Western Maryland intends to use the locomotive on excursion trains between Cumberland and Frostburg in Maryland.
Chesapeake Beach Railway
The railroad was never financially successful and never paid off any interest on its original one million dollar mortgage. Starting in 1921, with the construction of highways throughout the territory, revenues began to decrease. The destruction of the luxurious Belvedere Hotel by a fire which originally started at Klein's Bakery two blocks away on March 30, 1923 further limited business. In 1929, under new management, an attempt to rehabilitate the line was made and operations continued with the hope that a new ferry across the Chesapeake Bay to a point on Trippe's Bay in Dorchester County would drive new business. The ferry was blocked by the Claiborne-Annapolis Ferry Company, a competing ferry out of Annapolis. A hurricane in 1933 irreparably damaged the resort's facilities. On April 15, 1935, the last train left Chesapeake Beach. In 1935, management decided to replace the railroad with a bus line.
Chesapeake and Ohio Railway
The Chesapeake and Ohio Railway was a Class I railroad formed in 1869 in Virginia from several smaller Virginia railroads begun in the 19th century. Led by industrialist Collis P. Huntington, it reached from Virginia's capital city of Richmond to the Ohio River by 1873, where the railroad town (and later city) of Huntington, West Virginia was named for him.
Virginia Peninsula
As the region and Virginia rebuilt during Reconstruction, the Chesapeake and Ohio Railway (C&O) under the leadership of Collis P. Huntington was completed from Richmond to the Ohio River by 1871. Long a dream of Virginians, and later sponsored by both Virginia and West Virginia, the new railroad opened paths to ship products west, as well as offering an economically viable method of shipping the rich bituminous coal of the region to fuel the Industrial Revolution. However, the tidal portion of the James River, while navigable from Hampton Roads to the Fall Line at Richmond, couldn't accommodate the deep drafts of collier ships.
Pere Marquette (C&amp;O train)
The Chesapeake and Ohio Railway, which had controlled the Pere Marquette Railway for years, formally absorbed the company in 1947. On November 21, 1948, the C&O used new lightweight equipment from the Budd Company to establish new streamliners between Grand Rapids and Chicago. This equipment was surplus from another of Robert Young's projects, the abortive "Chessie", a proposed luxury streamliner. In 1950 new equipment from Pullman-Standard replaced the 1946 cars, which the C&O sold to the Chicago and Eastern Illinois Railroad (C&EI).
Orange Belt Railway
Today, there are segments of the Orange Belt Railway that are still active. Most notably, a section of the line running from Clearwater southeast to St. Petersburg remains active and is currently part of CSX's Clearwater Subdivision. Additionally, a 3-mile segment of the line in Central Florida from southwest of Forest City to Clarcona is still active, and is operated by the Florida Central Railroad.
Chesapeake and Ohio Depot (Marlinton, West Virginia)
Marlinton Chesapeake and Ohio Railroad Station was a historic railway station and bunkhouse located at Marlinton, Pocahontas County, West Virginia. They were built in 1901 by the Chesapeake and Ohio Railroad. The station was a frame, rectangular, one-story building measuring 76 feet by 16 feet and used for both passengers and freight. The bunkhouse is a one-story frame building measuring 24 feet by 16 feet. Both buildings featured vertical board and batten siding and decorative brackets in the wide projecting eaves of their gable roofs. Passenger service ended at Marlinton in 1958. Given its location at the trailhead of the Greenbrier River Trail, the station was renovated to house the Pocahontas County Convention and Visitors Bureau. The station was destroyed by fire in 2008; the bunkhouse remains extant.
Hocking Valley Scenic Railway
Most of the trackage used by the railway is known as the Hocking Valley Railway Historic District, and has been placed on the National Register of Historic Places for Athens County, Ohio. The trackage was once owned by the Hocking Valley Railway, which eventually became part of the Chesapeake & Ohio Railway. The HVSR began operating trains with steam locomotive [2-8-0] No. 33 built for the [Lake Superior & Ishpeming] in 1916, and operated over the former Monday Creek Branch to [Carbon Hill, Ohio|Carbon Hill]. Today, the tourist trains operate along the former C&O Armitage Subdivision between Nelsonville and a point just east of Logan, Ohio.
Carysbrook, Virginia
On October 26, 1971, the Fluvanna Board of Supervisors unsuccessfully sued the Chesapeake and Ohio Railroad to keep the railway in operation; it was abandoned in November 1975. At one point there were a few small businesses surrounding the railroad tracks in Carysbrook to include a station, grocery store and post office. A few manufacturing plants opened in Carysbrook in the 1960s and 1970s but have since ceased operations.
History of Virginia
In addition to those that were rebuilt, new railroads developed after the Civil War. In 1868, under railroad baron Collis P. Huntington, the Virginia Central Railroad was merged and transformed into the Chesapeake and Ohio Railroad. In 1870, several railroads were merged to form the Atlantic, Mississippi and Ohio Railroad, later renamed Norfolk & Western. In 1880, the towpath of the now-defunct James River & Kanawha canal was transformed into the Richmond and Allegheny Railroad, which within a decade would merge into the Chesapeake & Ohio. Others would include the Southern Railroad, the Seaboard Air Line, and the Atlantic Coast Line; still others would eventually reach into Virginia, including the Baltimore & Ohio and the Pennsylvania Railroad. The rebuilt Richmond, Fredericksburg, and Potomac Railroad eventually was linked to Washington, D.C..
Chesapeake and Ohio Canal
The Chesapeake and Ohio Canal, abbreviated as the C&O Canal and occasionally called the "Grand Old Ditch," operated from 1831 until 1924 along the Potomac River from Washington, D.C., to Cumberland, Maryland. The canal's principal cargo was coal from the Allegheny Mountains.
Leelanau Transit Company
Ferry service began in 1903 but was suspended in 1908 following the foreclosure sale of the line the previous year, never to resume; the railroad was recorganized as the Traverse City, Leelanau and Manistique Railway before assuming its final name in 1919 in another reorganization. The line was leased to the Manistee and North-Eastern Railroad; the lease was transferred to the Chesapeake and Ohio Railway when it absorbed the M&NE in 1955. The line remained active at least in part until the 1975, when the final section from Traverse City to Suttons Bay was abandoned. The line north to Northport was taken up in the 1960s. Passenger service was discontinued in 1948.
Ohio River and Charleston Railway
The Ohio River and Charleston Railway was a Southeastern railroad that operated in the late 19th century.
On July 17, 1893, Charles E. Hellier bought a section of railroad known as the "Clinchfield route" from Baring Brothers, an English banking company that had recently gone bankrupt due to the Panic of 1893, for $550,000. He then organized the Ohio River and Charleston Railway Company (of Tennessee). Two months later, in September 1893, he extended the railroad to go from Chestoa, Tennessee, to a station five miles south of Huntdale, North Carolina.
Chesapeake and Ohio Railway
Huntington supplied the Virginians with the money needed to complete the line to the Ohio River, through what was now the new state of West Virginia. The old Covington & Ohio's properties were conveyed to them [Note: the name was Railroad at this time ... it will be changed later to Railway] in keeping with its new mission of linking the Tidewater coast of Virginia with the "Western Waters." This was the old dream of the "Great Connection" which had been current in Virginia since Colonial times.
Chesapeake and Ohio Railway
A Chesapeake and Ohio passenger train was featured in the opening sequence of George Stevens' "Giant" (1956 film). Filmed in 1955, it was the final film of James Dean.
Richmond, Fredericksburg and Potomac Railroad
The Louisa Railroad was chartered in 1836, running from the RF&P at Doswell west to Louisa. At first it was operated as a branch of the RF&P, but it was reorganized as the Virginia Central Railroad in 1850 and merged into the Chesapeake and Ohio Railroad in 1868 as its oldest predecessor.
Fostoria Subdivision
Fostoria Subdivision is a portion of the former Chesapeake and Ohio Railway Toledo to Columbus line. Today it is owned by CSX Transportation, one of the three subdivisions on the former C&O line.
Gulf and Ohio Railways
In 2006 Gulf & Ohio sold the H&S and the Chattahoochee & Gulf railroads to shortline operator Genesee & Wyoming Inc.. Both divisions were subsequently consolidated into a single operation, the Chattahoochee Bay Railroad. On February 1, 2010 the lease on the Morehead & South Fork was acquired by the Carolina Coastal Railway and was no longer operated by Gulf & Ohio.
Chesapeake and Ohio Railway
Morgan and Vanderbilt had Melville E. Ingalls installed as President. 
Ingalls was, at the time, also President of the Vanderbilt's Cleveland, Cincinnati, Chicago and St. Louis Railroad (The "Big Four System"), and held both presidencies concurrently for the next decade. Ingalls installed George W. Stevens as general manager and effective head of the C&O.
Hocking Valley Scenic Railway
The Hocking Valley Scenic Railway is a non-profit, 501c3, volunteer-operated tourist railroad attraction that operates out of Nelsonville, Athens County, Ohio. It is also located near the popular Hocking Hills State Park in nearby Hocking County. It uses former trackage of the Chesapeake & Ohio Railway, which was in turn originally Hocking Valley Railway trackage. The current operation was founded in 1972.
Chesapeake and Indiana Railroad
The Chesapeake and Indiana Railroad is a Class III short-line railroad operating of rail line in northwestern Indiana. From the town of La Crosse, lines run northwest to the Porter County town of Malden, southeast to the Starke County towns of English Lake and North Judson, and northeast through La Porte County past Thomaston and Hanna to Wellsboro. The railroad is owned by the Town of North Judson and operated under lease by the Indiana Boxcar Corporation.
Chesapeake and Ohio Railway
By the end of the World War II, C&O was poised to help America during its great growth during the decades following, and at mid-century was truly a line of national importance. It became more so, at least in the public eye through Robert Ralph Young, its mercurial Chairman, and his Alleghany Corporation.
William Earl Dodge Stokes
In 1900, as reported in "The New York Times", Stokes bought at auction, for $25,000, the Chesapeake & Western Railroad, a bucolic venture that in an earlier incarnation, circa 1870s, was to be part of the Washington, Cincinnati & St. Louis Railroad, linking through the Shenandoah Valley at Harrisonburg, Virginia and into the central and southern coal producing areas of West Virginia and southern Ohio. The Chesapeake & Western had already been capitalized with $811,200 of common stock, $608,400 of preferred stock and $1,419,000 of first mortgage bonds. Stokes renamed it the Tidewater & West Virginia, but just a year later in 1901 renamed it the Chesapeake Western Railway. In an attempt to revive the plan to link more of east with west, Stokes pushed west and laid 13 miles of rail to Stokesville, west of Bridgewater in 1902, and east to Elkton. The Allegheny and Blue Ridge Mountains proved to be formidable obstacles to further expansion, and without serious financial backing there was no chance of true success.
Chesapeake and Ohio Depot (Petoskey, Michigan)
In 1899, the Chicago and West Michigan Railway and this station was absorbed into the Pere Marquette Railway. The Pere Marquette, in turn, was merged into the Chesapeake and Ohio Railway in 1947. The Petoskey station continued to serve passengers until the 1950s, when it was abandoned. IN 1970, the Little Traverse Regional Historical Society obtained a lease on the depot and some of the surrounding land. The building was converted into a museum in 1971, and as of 2017 is used as the Little Traverse Historical Museum
PM Toledo Division
In 1947 the Pere Marquette merged into the Chesapeake & Ohio, which in turn eventually became CSX Transportation. CSX still owns the Toledo-Saginaw line, which forms the Saginaw Subdivision, but in 2005 leased the section from Mount Morris to Saginaw to the Saginaw Bay Southern Railway, a short-line railroad. CSX continues to operate the Flint-Toledo segment directly.
Kentucky Railway Museum
Chesapeake and Ohio 2716 is also on display at the museum, now getting restored by the Kentucky Heritage Group.
Fast Flying Virginian
The "FFV" was inaugurated on May 11, 1889, and ran until May 12, 1968. The train operated on a daily daytime schedule, being carried from Jersey City, NJ—Penn Station in Manhattan was years in the future—as a Pennsylvania Railroad train to Washington, D.C. (after 1908 to Washington Union Station) and, as a C&O train, from there to Cincinnati, OH (after 1933 calling at the Union Terminal). The train operated westbound as #3 and eastbound as #4. The train ran behind C&O locomotives beyond Washington, DC, first to Alexandria, VA over trackage rights from the Richmond, Fredericksburg and Potomac to Alexandria, VA, there changing to tracks of the Southern Railway (now part of Norfolk Southern). In Orange, VA, C&O trains left Southern property to turn onto what is now a transfer track between Orange and Gordonsville, VA, but this track was originally part of the Orange and Alexandria Railroad, which continued through Gordonsville on to Charlottesville. This segment of track became part of the C&O, as did the track through Gordonsville, which before becoming part of the C&O was the Virginia Central Railroad. Northeast of Orange, portions of the Orange and Alexandria railroad became part of the Southern; the present-day Norfolk Southern tracks between Orange and Charlottesville were built after the Civil War. When the "FFV" was new, the transfer track from Southern property at Orange joined the C&O main line from Newport News, VA at Gordonsville, and proceeded on them to Charlottesville. About a mile west of the C&O station in Charlottesville, the C&O tracks crossed the Southern line. The Southern station was, and is, a union station, with platforms for both main lines; a few C&O trains, but not seemingly the "FFV", stopped at both stations. From Charlottesville, the "FFV" continued west over the Blue Ridge Mountains and North Mountain to West Virginia, along the New River Gorge, and finally crossing the Ohio River into Ohio at Cincinnati. (The "Ohio" of "Chesapeake and Ohio" is the river, not the state.)
Chesapeake Western Railway
Construction began in 1895 in Harrisonburg by the Chesapeake and Western Railroad, and proceed both east and west. To the west, Bridgewater, Virginia was the original terminus, but the line was extended to Stokesville by 1901 by the newly reorganized Chesapeake Western Railway. In 1933 the line was cut back to Bridgewater, and later to Dayton, Virginia. To the east the line reached Elkton by 1896, where the line's main yard and shops were constructed.
Chesapeake and Ohio Railway
During 1869–1873 the hard work of building through West Virginia was done with large crews working from both ends: the new city of Huntington on the Ohio River and White Sulphur (much as the UP and CP had done in the transcontinental work). The line was completed at Hawk's Nest, West Virginia in the New River Valley on January 28, 1873.
Chesapeake and Ohio 2755
It spent its nine-year working life hauling coal on the various mine branches out of Logan, West Virginia, usually to the Ohio River at Russell, Kentucky. Its last known run was from Handley, West Virginia, to Russell on January 18, 1956.
Chessie (train)
The Chessie was a proposed streamlined passenger train developed by the Chesapeake and Ohio Railway (C&O) in the late 1940s. The brainchild of C&O executive Robert R. Young, the "Chessie" would have operated on a daylight schedule between Washington, D.C., and Cincinnati, Ohio. The train's luxury lightweight equipment was built new by the Budd Company. A revolutionary new steam turbine locomotive would have provided power, including speeds up to . Although the equipment was delivered, a worsening financial outlook led to the cancellation of the train before it operated in revenue service.
Chesapeake and Ohio Railway
Tex Beneke and his Orchestra performed a big band number 'Chesapeake And Ohio', written by Sigman & Magidson, in which Tex sang of his regret about not requesting the address of a lady he met on the Chesapeake and Ohio Railway.
Chesapeake and Ohio Railway
Typical of the men who built the C & O during this period was William Nelson Page, a civil engineer who had attended special courses in engineering at the University of Virginia before he went to work on the railroad. Page directed the location and construction of the New River Canyon Bridge in 1871 and 1872, and of the Mill Creek Canyon bridge in 1874. In 1875 and 1876, he led the surveying party charged with mapping out the route of the double-track railway to extend between Hampton Roads and the Ohio River via the New River and Kanawha Valleys of West Virginia. Like many men who came to West Virginia with the railroad, Page was struck with both the beauty and potential of the natural resources and is considered one of the more energetic and successful men who helped develop West Virginia's rich bituminous coal fields in the late 19th and early 20th century. Page and his wife Emma Hayden Gilham, settled in the tiny mountain hamlet of Ansted, West Virginia, a town located in Fayette County which was named for British geologist David T. Ansted, who had mapped much of the region's coal resources in 1853. The palatial Page Mansion was built on a high bluff overlooking the New River far below, where the C&O occupied both sides of the narrow valley. Between the bridge just below Sewell and the one at Hawks Nest, one track is on the west bank of the New River, and the other on the east bank.
Collis Huntington intended to connect the C&O with his western and mid-western holdings, but had much other railroad construction to finance and he stopped the line at the Ohio and over the next few years did little to improve its rough construction or develop traffic. The only connection to the West was by packet boats operating on the Ohio River. Because the great mineral resources of the region hadn't been fully realized yet, the C&O suffered through the bad times brought on by the Financial Panic of 1873, and went into receivership in 1878. Williams C. Wickham was named as its Receiver. When reorganized, it was renamed The Chesapeake & Ohio Railway Company.
Norge Train Depot
Norge Train Depot is a historic home located at Norge, near Williamsburg, James City County, Virginia. It was built about 1907 by the Chesapeake and Ohio Railway from standardized plans. The train station is the last surviving example of a wood frame "informal standard" depot in the six states that were served by Chesapeake and Ohio Railway. Originals were built according to an informal plan and no standard drawings were prepared or entered in the railway's set of design standards.
Chicago and West Michigan Railroad Charlevoix Station
The high level of service to Charlevoix continued through World War II. However, the increase in automobile use in the late 1940s and 1950s cut into railroad revenues. The Pere Marquette merged into the Chesapeake and Ohio Railway in 1947, and service to Charlevoix was gradually scaled back. Passenger train service to Charlevoix was completely discontinued in 1962. Rail freight runs continued until 1982, and the Chesapeake and Ohio Railway abandoned all its lines in northern Michigan.
Youngstown and Ohio River Railroad
One of the smaller interurban railways in the state of Ohio was the Youngstown and Ohio River Railroad, or Y&OR. Along with the Youngstown and Southern Railway, the Y&OR formed a traction link between Youngstown, Ohio and the Ohio River at East Liverpool. It served several coal mines in the area and was distinguished by the unusual feat of electrifying a section of a steam railroad, the Pittsburgh, Lisbon and Western Railroad, as part of a trackage rights agreement. The Y&OR operated for 24 years.
Chesapeake and Ohio Canal
Yet in 1850, the B&O Railroad had already been operating in Cumberland for eight years, and the Canal suffered financially. Debt-ridden, the company dropped its plan to continue construction of the next of the canal into the Ohio Valley. The company long realized (especially with the experience at the Paw Paw tunnel) that construction over the mountains going to Pittsburgh was "wildly unrealistic". Occasionally there was talk of continuing the canal, e.g. in 1874, an long tunnel was proposed to go through the Allegheny Mountains. Nevertheless, there was a tunnel built to connect with the Pennsylvania canal.
Chesapeake and Ohio Depot (Catlettsburg, Kentucky)
Catlettsburg is a former Chesapeake and Ohio Railroad station located in downtown Catlettsburg, Kentucky. Opened between 1897 and 1890 to replace an older wooden station, it served trains until 1958. Amtrak trains began stopping at Tri-State Station some to the north in 1975; it was renamed Catlettsburg around 1988. Amtrak service was moved from Catlettsburg to Ashland in 1998. The C&O station was refurbished from 2004 to 2006 and added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2012.
Frederick E. Turneaure
Turneaure graduated in 1889, and took a job with the Lehigh Valley Railroad. After a year, he joined the Chesapeake & Ohio Railroad, where he worked until 1890.
Indiana Eastern Railroad
The Indiana Eastern Railroad is a short-line railroad in the U.S. states of Indiana and Ohio, operating a former Chesapeake and Ohio Railway line between Richmond, Indiana and Fernald, Ohio under lease from CSX Transportation. It began operations in 2005 as a subsidiary of the Respondek Railroad, and interchanges freight with CSX at Cottage Grove.
Chesapeake and Ohio Railway
At the end of 1970 C&O operated 5067 miles (8 155 km) of road on 10219 miles (16 446 km) of track, not including WM or B&O and its subsidiaries.
Wappocomo (Romney, West Virginia)
In 1972, the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad's South Branch line, located on the Wappocomo property, became part of the Chessie System. In 1978, ownership of the line was transferred to the West Virginia State Rail Authority, after which the old Baltimore and Ohio Railroad South Branch line became known as the South Branch Valley Railroad.
Narrow-gauge railroads in the United States
Ohio was a center of the narrow-gauge movement. In addition to serving as the northern end of the Little Giant "transcontinental", it had several other notable lines, including the long-lived Ohio River & Western Railroad, the Kelley Island Lime & Transport Company (the world's largest operator of Shay locomotives, virtually all of them narrow gauge) and the Connotton Valley Railroad, a successful coal hauler still in operation today as the standard-gauge Wheeling & Lake Erie Railroad. Narrow gauge railroad mileage in Ohio reached its peak in 1883 and declined rapidly after 1884.
Claiborne, Maryland
The ferry operation by the Baltimore, Chesapeake, & Atlantic Railway was almost halted in 1915 due to a decision of the Interstate Commerce Commission against the BC&A's parent company, the Pennsylvania Railroad, dictating that the company surrender some of the steamboat lines which they operated on the Chesapeake Bay. In the end, the Pennsylvania Railroad had to sell off or end all its ferry lines operating between Baltimore and points on the Eastern Shore other than the one at Claiborne.
William Nelson Page
After the cessation of hostilities in 1865, as he launched his career, he participated in some local politics and civic activities, but primarily directed his considerable energies into developing transportation and mineral resources in the mountainous regions of Virginia and the newly formed state of West Virginia. Between 1871 and 1876, William Page played a role in engineering and building the Chesapeake and Ohio Railway (C&O), which was under the leadership of Collis P. Huntington. Initially, he led one of the surveying parties charged with mapping the route of a double-track railway that had been ordered by Congress. This new railway was expected to run between Richmond, Virginia and the Ohio River (at what became Huntington, West Virginia), via the valleys of the James River and Jackson River in Virginia, and the New River and Kanawha River in West Virginia. He chose the location and directed the construction of several important C&O bridges. While working with the C&O, Page became fascinated with the potential of the untapped mineral resources of West Virginia.
Chesapeake and Ohio Railway
By the early 1960s the C&O was headquartered in Cleveland, Ohio, USA. In 1972, under the leadership of Cyrus Eaton, it became part of the Chessie System, along with the Baltimore and Ohio and Western Maryland Railway. The Chessie System was later combined with the Seaboard Coast Line and Louisville and Nashville, both the primary components of the Family Lines System, to become a key portion of CSX Transportation (CSXT) in the 1980s.
Seaboard System Railroad
Since the late 1960s, the Seaboard Coast Line and its sister railroads had been known as the "Family Lines System," sharing common ownership while operating under different names when conducting business. On July 1, 1986, Seaboard and Chessie merged into Chesapeake & Ohio Railway on August 31, 1987 which ended the CSX Corporation's shared ownership of the Seaboard System and Chessie System railroads.