The 'Chesapeake and Ohio Railway' (C&O) was a
Class I railroad formed in
1869 in
Virginia from many smaller railroads begun in the
19th century. Tapping the
coal reserves of
West Virginia, it formed the basis for the
City of Newport News and the
coal piers on
Hampton Roads, and forged a rail link to the midwest, eventually reaching Columbus, Cincinnati, and Toledo in
Ohio and
Chicago, Illinois.
Headquartered in
Cleveland, Ohio,
USA, in
1972 it became part of the
Chessie System, along with the
Baltimore and Ohio and
Western Maryland Railway. In
1980, the Chessie system combined with
Seaboard Coast Line Industries to form
CSX Corporation, which by
1987 had merged all its railroad subsidiaries into
CSX Transportation, one of seven Class I railroads operating in
North America at the beginning of the
21st century. The C&O itself disappeared in a merger into CSX on
September 2,
1987.
[1]
The city of
Huntington, West Virginia, is named for one of its early leaders,
Collis P. Huntington.
Early history, Crozet, and crossing the Blue Ridge Mountains
The Chesapeake & Ohio Railway traces its origin to the
Louisa Railroad of
Louisa County, Virginia, begun in
1836, and the
James River & Kanawha Canal Company, also begun in Virginia in
1785. The C&O of the
1950s and
1960s at its peak before the first modern merger, was the product of about 150 smaller lines that had been incorporated into the system over time.
By
1850 the Louisa Railroad had been built east to
Richmond and west to
Charlottesville, and in keeping with its new and larger vision, was renamed the
Virginia Central Railroad. The Commonwealth of Virginia, always keen to help with "internal improvements" not only owned a portion of Virginia Central stock through the state
Board of Public Works, but incorporated and financed the
Blue Ridge Railroad to accomplish the hard and expensive task of crossing the first mountain barrier to the west. Under the leadership of the great early
civil engineer Claudius Crozet, the Blue Ridge RR built over the mountains, using four tunnels, including the 4,263-foot
Blue Ridge Tunnel at the top of the pass, then one of the longest tunnels in the world.
While the Blue Ridge was being breached, Virginia Central was building westward from the west foot of the mountains, across the Great Valley of Virginia (The
Shenandoah Valley), and the Shenandoah range (Great North Mountain), reaching a point known as Jackson's River Station, at the foot of the
Alleghany Mountains (note that in Virginia Alleghany is spelled with an "a"), in
1856. This is the site that would be called
Clifton Forge later.
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. 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.
C & O predecessors during the Civil War
During the
Civil War the
Virginia Central Railroad was one of the Confederacy's most important lines, carrying food from the Shenandoah region to Richmond, and ferrying troops and supplies back and forth as the campaigns surrounded its tracks frequently. It had an important connection with the
Orange and Alexandria Railroad at
Gordonsville, Virginia. On more than one occasion, the Virginia Central was used in actual tactical operations, transporting troops directly to the battlefield. But, it was a prime target for Federal armies, and by the end of the war had only about five miles of track still in operation, and $40 in gold in its treasury.
Collis P. Huntington links the tidewater of Virginia with the Ohio Valley
Following the war, Virginia Central officials, led by company president
Williams Carter Wickham, realized that they would have to get capital to rebuild from outside the economically devastated South, and attempted to attract
British interests, without success. Finally, they succeeded in getting
Collis P. Huntington of New York, interested in the line. Huntington had been one of the "
Big Four" involved in building the
Central Pacific portion of the
Transcontinental Railroad, which was at this time just reaching completion. Huntington had a vision of a true transcontinental railroad that would go from sea to sea under one operating management, and decided that the Virginia Central might be the eastern link to this system.
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.
On
July 1,
1867, the C&O was completed nine miles from
Jackson's River Station to the town of
Covington,
county seat of
Alleghany County. By 1869, it had crossed Alleghany Mountain, using much of the tunneling and roadway work done by the Covington & Ohio before the war, and was running to the great mineral springs resort at
White Sulphur Springs, now in
Greenbrier County, West Virginia. Here,
stagecoach connections were made for Charleston and the navigation on the Kanawha River (and thus water transportation on the whole Ohio/Mississippi system).
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.
The
West Virginia stretch of the C & O was the site of the legendary competition between
John Henry and a steam-powered machine; the competition is said to have taken place in a tunnel south of
Talcott, West Virginia near the
Greenbrier River.
Typical of the men who built the C & O during this period was
William N. 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 settled in the tiny mountain hamlet of
Ansted, West Virginia, a town located in
Fayette County near Hawk's Nest, on high bluffs overlooking the New River far below, where the C&O occupied both sides of the narrow valley.
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 (Depression) of 1873, and went into receivership in
1878. When reorganized it was renamed The Chesapeake & Ohio Railway Company.
West Virginia coal development and Newport News piers
Shortly after the end of the Civil War, Collis P. Huntington and his associates began buying up land in
Warwick County, Virginia. During the ten years from
1878 to
1888, C&O's coal resources began to be developed and shipped eastward. In
1881 the Peninsula Subdivision was completed from
Richmond to the new city of
Newport News, located on
Hampton Roads, the East's largest
ice-free port. Transportation of coal to Newport News where it was loaded on coast-wise shipping and transported to the Northeast became a staple of the C&O's business at this time.
Morgan and Vanderbilt take control
In
1888 Huntington lost control of the C&O in a reorganization without foreclosure that saw his majority interest lost to the interests of
J.P. Morgan and
William K. Vanderbilt. In those days before US anti-trust laws were created, many smaller railroads which appeared to be in competition with each other were essentially under common control. Even the leaders of large
Pennsylvania Railroad (PRR) and
New York Central Railroad (NYC), obstensibly bitter rivals, had secretly entered into a "community of interests" pact.
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.
The C&O gains a water level route along the James River across Virginia
In
1889 the
Richmond and Allegheny Railroad company, which had been built along the tow-path of the defunct
James River and Kanawha Canal, was merged into the C&O, giving it a down grade "water level" line from
Clifton Forge to Richmond, avoiding the heavy grades of North Mountain and the Blue Ridge on the original Virginia Central route. This "
James River Line" would be the principal artery of eastbound coal transportation down to the present day.
Ingalls and Stevens completely rebuilt the C&O to "modern" standards with ballasted roadbed, enlarged and lined tunnels, steel bridges, and heavier steel rails, as well as new, larger, cars and locomotives.
In
1888, the C&O built the Cincinnati Division, from
Huntington, West Virginia down the south bank of the Ohio River in
Kentucky and across the river at Cincinnati, connecting with the "Big Four" and other Midwestern Railroads.
Great Lakes shipping, Chicago
From
1900 to
1920 most of the C&O's lines tapping the rich
bituminous coal fields of southern
West Virginia and eastern
Kentucky were built, and the C&O as it was known throughout the rest of the 20th Century was essentially in place.
In
1910 C&O merged the
Chicago, Cincinnati & Louisville Railroad into its system. This line had been built diagonally across the state of
Indiana from
Cincinnati to
Hammond in the preceding decade. This gave the C&O a direct line from Cincinnati to the great railroad hub of
Chicago.
Also in
1910, C&O interests bought control of the
Kanawha and Michigan (K&M) and
Hocking Valley (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 350 miles 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.
C&O gained access to the Hocking Valley by building a new line directly from a point a few miles from its huge and growing terminal at
Russell, Ky., to Columbus between
1917 and
1926. It crossed the
Ohio River at
Limeville, Ky. (
Sciotoville, Ohio), on the great
Sciotoville Bridge which remains today the mightiest bridge ever built from point of view of its load capacity. It was truly a monument to engineering, but seldom commented on outside of engineering circles because of its relatively remote location.
With the connection at Columbus complete, C&O soon was sending more of its high quality metallurgical and steam coal west than east, and in
1930 it merged the Hocking Valley into its system.
Van Sweringen era - Pere Marquette Railroad
The next great change for C&O came in
1923 when the great Cleveland financiers, the
Van Sweringen brothers (O. P. and M. J. Van Sweringen), bought a controlling interest in the line as part of their expansion of the
Nickel Plate Road (NKP) system. Eventually they controlled the NKP, C&O,
Pere Marquette Railroad (in
Michigan and
Ontario), and
Erie railroads. They managed to control this huge (for the time) system by a maze of holding companies and interlocking directorships. This house of cards tumbled when the
Great Depression began and the Van Sweringen companies collapsed.
However, the C&O was a strong line. Despite the fact that in the early
1930s over 50% of American railroads went into receivership, it not only avoided bankruptcy, but took the occasion of cheap labor and materials to again completely rebuild itself. During the hard economic times when it seemed the whole country was retrenching, C&O was boring new tunnels, adding double track, rebuilding bridges, upgrading the weight of its rail, and rebuilding its roadbed, all with money from its principal commodity of haulage: coal. Even during the
Great Depression, coal was something that had to be used everywhere, and C&O was sitting astride some of the best
bituminous seams in the country.
Because of this great upgrading and building program, C&O was in prime condition to carry the monumental loads needed during
World War II. During the War it transported men and material in unimagined quantities as the U. S. used the
Hampton Roads Port of Embarkation as a principal departure point for the European Theater. The invasion of North Africa was loaded there. Of course, in addition to fueling the ships of the
U.S. Navy and the merchant marine, coal was also needed in ever increasing quantities by war industries. C&O was ready with a powerful, well organized, well maintained railway powered by the largest and most modern locomotives.
Post World War II - Robert R. Young
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.
Chesapeake and Ohio Railway
EMD F7 diesel locomotive #7086, photographed at
Handley, West Virginia in July of 1953. This locomotive, built in October, 1952 is a late Phase II example and representative of late F7 production.
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, and inaugurated many forward looking advances in technology that have ramifications to the present. He changed the C&O's herald (logo) to "''C&O for Progress''" to embody his ideas that C&O would lead the industry to a new day. He installed a well-staffed research and development department that came up with ideas for passenger service that are thought to be futuristic even now, and for freight service that would challenge the growth of trucking. Young eventually gave up his C&O position to become Chairman of the
New York Central before his suicide in
1958.
During the Young era and following, C&O was headed by
Walter J. Tuohy, under whose control the "''For Progress''" theme continued, though in a more muted way after the departure of Young. During this time, C&O installed the first large computer system in railroading, developed larger and better freight cars of all types, switched (reluctantly) from steam to diesel motive power, and diversified its traffic, which had already occurred in
1947 when it merged into the system the old
Pere Marquette Railroad (PM) of Michigan and Ontario, Canada, which had been controlled by the C&O since Van Sweringen days. The PM's huge automotive industry traffic, taking raw materials in and finished vehicle out, gave C&O some protection from the swings in the coal trade, putting merchandise traffic at 50% of the company's haulage.
Chessie System, CSX
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 ancient modern of railroads, the hoary
Baltimore & Ohio. Avoiding a mistake that would become endemic to later mergers among other lines, a gradual amalgamation of the two lines' services, personnel, motive power and rolling stock, and facilities built a new and stronger system, which was ready for a new name in
1972. Under the leadership of the visionary
Hays T. Watkins Jr., the C&O, B&O and
Western Maryland Railway became
Chessie System, taking on the name officially that had been used colloquially for so long for the C&O, after the
mascot kitten used in ads since
1933.
Under Watkins' careful and visionary leadership, Chessie System then merged with
Seaboard System Railroad (itself a combination of great railroads of the Southeast including
Seaboard Air Line,
Atlantic Coast Line,
Louisville & Nashville Railroad,
Clinchfield Railroad and others), to form a new mega-railroad:
CSX Transportation (CSX).
After acquiring 42% of
Conrail in
1999, CSX became one of four major railroad systems left in the country. The C&O heritage at CSX includes its roots in Robert Young at "For Progress," the Van Sweringens and their quest for efficiency and standardization, to George Stevens and his dedication to operation efficiency and safety awareness, back to
Collis P. Huntington and his dreams of a transportation empire, and even back to those old, long forgotten Virginians who started it all to carry their farm produce to market in
1830.
See also
★
List of Chesapeake and Ohio locomotives
References
1. Surface Transportation Board, Docket AB_55_627_X, CSX Transportation, Inc.--abandonment exemption--in Floyd County, KY, February 14, 2003
External links
★
Chesapeake and Ohio Historical Society
★
Steam Operations of the Chesapeake & Ohio Railway at Hinton, West Virginia
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