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 The Baltimore and Ohio Rail Road Company, Americas first common carrier, was chartered on February 28th 1827 by a group of Baltimore businessmen to ensure traffic would not be lost to the proposed Chesapeake & Ohio Canal. Construction on July 4th 1828 with the laying of the first stone in a grand ceremony attended by the honorable Charles Carroll, the last living signer of the Declaration of Independence. The early horse drawn rail lines were made of wood rails with iron straps laid upon stones. The first stone, now located in the B&O museum in Baltimore, contained a copy of the original charter. President John Quincy Adams, believing that canals where the way of the future, broke ground the same day at a ceremony for the C&O Canal.
The first "official" passengers rode in horse-drawn carts from Mount Clair in Baltimore to the Carrollton Viaduct being constructed on January 7th 1830. On May 24th the line was complete all the way to Ellicott's Mills, Md. Progress to the Potomac was restricted by the C&O Canal, which had the blessing of the federal government and had already acquired the best route. The first trial run of Peter Cooper's Tom Thumb in August of 1830 brought steam to the railroad along with many other improvements. Cast iron rails replaced wood, trains of carts divided the weight upon the rails, flanged iron wheels held to the rail better than wood, and a breaking system was developed.
Produce was flowing from Point of Rocks, Md. on the Potomac by 1832 and the B&O expanded steadily with a branch reaching Washington in 1835. US Mail began flowing on the line on January 1st 1838. The B&O reached Cumberland, Md. by June 1851, but to reach Wheeling, Va. (West Virginia did not yet exist) 11 tunnels and 113 bridges had to be constructed. On June 22nd 1852 the line reached the Monongahela River at Fairmont, Va. (now WV) and on Christmas Eve the last spike was laid east of Wheeling. On January 1st 1853 the first train arrived in Wheeling from Baltimore in 16 hours, a trip that had once taken several days. The "West" was now open.
As the Western Frontier continued to move, new cities began to grow in importance. Cinncinnati, St. Louis, and Chicago were the new targets for the B&O. During the Civil War the railroad moved Union troops and supplies and was the target of many attacks. Bridges were burned and rebuilt, tracks were torn up and replaced, telegraph lines pulled down and restored. Steel rails began use and prefabricated iron bridges sped repairs. The first bridge across the Ohio was begun in 1868 and took 37 months to complete, a second bridge was begun on the Parkersburg line in 1869 and completed in January of 1871. The B&O finally reached Chicago in November of 1874 after completing 811 miles of track. At the same time the B&O increased its control of the Marietta & Cincinatti Railroad, the Ohio & Mississippi Railroad, and others to reach St. Louis. These lines became part of the B&O in 1893.
By the end of the 19th century the B&O had achieved almost 5,800 miles of track and connected Chicago and St. Louis to Baltimore, Washington, Philadelphia, and New York City. Depressions and hard times brought receivership of the B&O to the Pennsylvania Railroad on February 29th 1896. Improvements continued with a tunnel under the streets of Baltimore and new lines purchased. The US government took control of America's rail lines in 1917 during the First World War and left them severely weakened by 1920. The B&O however continued to grow and in 1927 acquired a 40 percent share in the Western Maryland Railway. The railroad celebrated its 100th anniversary in 1927 with two events, a private dinner in February and The Centenary Exhibition and Pageant of the Baltimore & Ohio in September. Some of the B&O's original locomotives and equipment were on hand as where replicas of the first steam engines, along side the latest in steam technology found on the B&O, Pennsylvania, and NYC. Total attendance for the three week event was over 1.3 million people.
The first diesel locomotive on the B&O was a 60 ton, 300 horse power switcher, used for yard work in 1925. The first road diesel, purchased for the Washington-New York Royal Blue in 1935, was a two unit EMD EA "shovel nose" set. During World War II, 5400 hp four unit EMD freight sets came to the B&O. Great steam mallets continued to be purchased until 1945. With the scarcity of gasoline and tires, huge amounts of oil and coal and 97 percent of all troups were carried by America's Railroads. After the war, as revenue declined and truck traffic increased, the B&O was faced with more financial difficulties. Many of the eastern railroads were declaring bankruptcy and proposing mergers. The NYC proposed a merger with the B&O and C&O, but the C&O had already acquired 61 percent of the B&O by 1961 and on New Year's Eve, 1962 the merger was approved. The combined system controlled 11,000 miles of track.
In 1972 the Chessie System was born with engines and equipment repainted in yellow, blue and orange, and wearing the Chessie-C logo and their orignal markings on the cab. In 1974 the B&O acquired total control of the Western Maryland. The Chessie System and the Seaboard System, under the control of the C&O, merged on November 1st, 1980 under the holding company name CSX Corporation. CSX standing for Chessie, Seaboard, and many times more. The combined road at that time had over 27,000 miles of track. In 1986 CSX merged all the railroads into CSX Transportation thus ending the history of the great Baltimore & Ohio Railroad. Nearly all locomotives and most freight cars are now in the latest CSX paint and markings. Many miles of B&O track, including most of the St. Louis main line, have been abandoned, and the traditional B&O color position signals are being replaced with C&O style stop lights. The name may be gone, but the road will always be remembered.
The Chesapeake & Ohio Railroad
On February 18th 1836 the farmers of Louisa County, Virginia, incorporated the Louisa Railroad to help get their products to market. Starting from Hanover Junction, now Doswell, in December of 1837, the first segment was laid to Fredericks Hall. The directors of the railroad contracted with the Richmond, Fredericksburg & Potomac to operate the line as a branch, but broke with the RF&P in 1847 to expand towards Richmond and towards the west. The name of the railroad was changed to the Virginia Central in 1850. After a legal battle with the RF&P over access to Richmond, the Virginia Central reached the city in 1851.
During that time the railroad had completed its westward line past Charlottesville ending at Mechum's River. In 1850 the commonwealth of Virginia, which held 40% of Virginia Central stock, began construction of the Blue Ridge Railroad from Mechum's River and reached Waynesboro in 1854 by way of the longest tunnel ever constructed. During the construction a temporary line over the mountain and special mountain climbing engines were used until the tunnel was completed in 1858. By 1857 the Blue Ridge Railroad reached Clifton Forge and came under lease to the Virginia Central.
During the 1850's the railroad's biggest competitor was the canal being constructed by the James River Company started in 1785 with George Washington its president. By 1851 the canal had reached its farthest navigable point on the James River and a railroad was proposed to span the distance to the Ohio River. Construction on the Virgina Central was postponed until the fate of the Covington & Ohio was determined. The answer came in the form of the Civil War, halting construction on both lines. The Virginia Central was used extensively by the South and suffered for it. Service was restored after the war by July 23rd, 1865. While the majority of the Covington & Ohio line now was within the new state of West Virginia, and out of the hands of the commonwealth of Virginia, construction continued on the Virginia Central to connect with it at Covington in 1867. The two railroads then merged into the Chesapeake & Ohio Railroad, chartered in both Virginia and West Virginia, in 1868.
The success of the C&O was assured when Collis P. Huntington became president of the line on July 15th 1869. Construction west continued with more tunnels and massive fills. At the same time construction east was begun from the new city of Huntington on the Ohio River. The two lines were connected at Hawks Nest, West Virginia on January 28th 1873. But the promise of revenue was halted by the depression of 1873 and a steel industry that never came to Virginia. The railroad went into receivership in 1875 and came out as the Chesapeake & Ohio Railway in 1878. In 1881 the C&O connected its line to the Elizabethtown, Lexington & Big Sandy Railroad, which gave it access to Cincinatti by way of Lexington, Kentucky, over the Kentucky Central. Both lines were controlled by Huntington as were the profitable packet boats that ran from Huntington to Cincinnati. A direct line to Cincinnati was not completed until 1888.
The C&O was extended east to the port at Newport News in 1882 and coal export became the staple of the C&O to this day. Collis P. Huntington by 1888 had control of several railroads linking coast to coast, but lost control of the C&O to the Vanderbilts in receivership in 1889. Under the Vanderbilts many improvements were made to track, tunnels, and bridges. New trackage was acquired in Virginia providing a second route from Clifton Forge to Richmond, and trackage rights on the Virginia Midland, later Southern, were obtained to reach Washington D.C. in 1889. Passenger service reached New York by way of the Pennsylvania Railroad.
Before the days of antitrust sentiment, the C&O was under the control of the New York Central and the Pennsylvania until 1908. The C&O extended its lines within West Virgina to reach the coal fields and extract lumber. In 1910 the C&O purchased the Chicago, Cincinnati & Louisville Railroad in foreclosure. The C&O also had control of the Kanawha & Michigan and the Hocking Valley Railway giving it access to the Great Lakes at Toledo. In 1923 the railroad came under control of the Van Sweringen brothers and through arrangements was aligned with many railroads in the region, but a merger of the Nickel Plate, Erie, C&O and others never ocurred. The C&O did merge with the Hocking Valley in 1930. The C&O was still profitable even through the Great Depression and made many track and tunnel improvements. In 1947 the C&O merged with the Pere Marquette.
Under the leadership of Robert R. Young, the C&O modernized its passenger fleet but could not stop the decline in passenger traffic. Young sought to merge with the NYC, but instead gave up his C&O position in a proxy fight to become chairman of the New York Central in 1954. Instead of merging with the NYC the C&O gained control of the B&O, which was having financial problems, and thus control over the Western Maryland in 1963. The combined railroad increased diversity and broadened its market.
In 1972 Hays Watkins integrated the combined lines into the Chessie System with a modern paint scheme and Ches-C cat logo. In 1980 the Chessie System merged with the Seaboard System, creating the CSX Corporation, giving it access to the entire eastern United States. With the merger into CSX Transportation, the Chesapeake & Ohio and many other lines ended their great history.
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