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30-764: At the end of 1925, HV operated 349 miles of road on 881 miles of track; that year it reported 2614 million ton-miles of revenue freight and 25 million passenger-miles. The earliest predecessor of the Hocking Valley was the Mineral Railroad , incorporated in April 1864 to build from Athens in the rich Hocking Valley to Columbus . The company changed its name to the Columbus and Hocking Valley Railroad in June 1867, shortly after construction began at Columbus, and

60-564: A nickname that had been used colloquially for the railroad for several years, after the mascot kitten used in ads since 1933. 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

90-584: 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 Sportsman (which connected Detroit with Washington, D.C., and Newport News) and the Resort Special were also well-traveled trains on the system. Much of the reason for

120-681: The Kanawha and Michigan Railway to make the connection from Charleston , but in 1917 it opened the first piece of the Northern Subdivision , which joined the main line at Limeville with Norfolk and Western Railway trackage rights to Columbus, and in 1927 a separate line to Columbus was completed. When the C&;O acquired control of the Pere Marquette Railway in 1929, the Hocking Valley served as its connection to

150-639: The Panic of 1873 , began in August 1875, and the line was opened from Columbus to Marion on November 1, 1876, and the rest of the way to Walbridge , outside Toledo , on January 11, 1877. Trackage rights were acquired over the Toledo and Woodville Railroad (a Pennsylvania Railroad subsidiary) to reach Toledo, including a dock on the Maumee River to handle Hocking Valley coal and iron ore. The final piece of

180-639: 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. The C&O traces its origins to the Louisa Railroad of Louisa County, Virginia, begun in 1836. By 1850 the Louisa had been built east to Richmond and west to Charlottesville, and in keeping with its new and larger vision,

210-557: The C&O as it was known throughout the rest of the 20th Century was essentially in place. In 1910, the C&O absorbed the Chicago, Cincinnati and Louisville Railroad, which 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. The first small terminal and repair shops were located at Richmond beginning in 1860. After expanding to Huntington in 1872,

240-543: The C&O with his Western and Midwestern holdings, but ended up stopping construction at the Ohio River. Thus the only connection to the West was by packet boats operating on the river. Because the mineral resources of West Virginia and Kentucky 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

270-696: The Logan-Nelsonville area, including along Snow Fork (initially incorporated in July 1875 as the Snow Fork Valley Railroad ) to Orbiston (1877), Murray City (1882), and Coalgate (1893), and along Brush Fork to New Pittsburg (1877–78). The Columbus and Toledo Railroad was incorporated in May 1872 to connect its namesake cities on an eastern route through Delaware , Marion , Upper Sandusky , and Fostoria . Construction, delayed by

300-587: The Northeast became a staple of the C&O’s business at this time. In 1888 the C&O built the Cincinnati Division from Huntington down the South bank of the Ohio River and across the river at Cincinnati, connecting with the “Big Four” and other Midwestern Railroads. From 1900 to 1920 most of the C&O’s line tapping the rich bituminous coal fields of West Virginia and Kentucky were completed, and

330-579: 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 , in 1973 Chessie System was created as a holding company for the C&O, B&O and Western Maryland Railway . In effect, C&O formally adopted

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360-454: The details below. Request from 172.68.168.150 via cp1114 cp1114, Varnish XID 964508052 Upstream caches: cp1114 int Error: 429, Too Many Requests at Thu, 28 Nov 2024 11:01:44 GMT Chesapeake and Ohio Railway The Chesapeake and Ohio Railway ( reporting marks C&O , CO ) was a Class I railroad formed in 1869 in Virginia from several smaller Virginia railroads begun in

390-535: The economically devastated South and succeeded in getting Collis Huntington interested. He supplied the Virginians with the money needed to complete the line through what is now West Virginia. The old Covington and Ohio Railroad properties were conveyed to the C&O in keeping with its new mission of linking the Atlantic Ocean with the “Western Waters” of the Ohio River. Huntington intended to connect

420-821: 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. At the end of 1970 C&O operated 5,067 mi (8,155 km) of road on 10,219 mi (16,446 km) of track, not including WM or B&O and its subsidiaries. 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. However, it did have

450-439: The largest rail hub and third largest city in the country, passenger service to it was discontinued in 1933. Trains continued to run as west as Hammond, Indiana , a Chicago suburb, until 1949. It had accessed the city’s Central Station (and previously, Dearborn Station ) via the former Chicago, Cincinnati and Louisville Line. Chessie sported two kittens, Nip and Tuck. During World War II, Chessie's "husband" — Peake — (creating

480-510: The line on an extended route to Columbus, but ran out of funds, and yet another company, the Ohio and West Virginia Railway , was incorporated in May 1878 to continue construction. The north end was moved back to Logan a year later, and construction began in July 1879, now allied with the Columbus and Hocking Valley. Operation over the full route commenced on October 15, 1880, and a branch alongside

510-554: The line opened for business from Columbus to Lancaster on January 20, 1869, Logan on August 28, 1869, Nelsonville on September 17, 1869, and Athens on July 25, 1870. The first branch, from Logan east to New Straitsville , was completed in January 1871, and the railroad completed a cutoff from Nelsonville north alongside Monday Creek to the Straitsville Branch in 1880. Several more branches reached additional mines in

540-666: The merged company. Over the next five years, the CSX railroads began consolidating into one mega-railroad. The process began when SCL merged its railroads into the Seaboard System Railroad in 1982. Western Maryland was merged into B&O on May 1, 1983. B&O was merged into C&O on April 30, 1987. Seaboard changed its name to CSX Transportation on July 1, 1986. Finally, C&O merged into CSX Transportation on Aug. 31, 1987. After acquiring 42% of Conrail in 1999, CSX became one of four major railroad systems left in

570-533: The name "Chessie Peak", as in Chesapeake) was shown with a bandage on his paw as a war veteran returning from military service. While the kitten was created by the Austrian artist Guido Grünewald, the success of Chessie as a marketing tool is often credited to Lionel Probert, at the time an assistant to the C&O president. C&O continued to be one of the more profitable and financially sound railways in

600-402: 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. The C&O mostly focused on passenger trains in the eastern half of its system. Despite connecting to Chicago,

630-404: The primary back shops were established on 100 acres of land along Fifth Avenue. These facilities were expanded and modernized over a five year period in three phases beginning in 1916. Another large shop site was established at Clifton Forge, Virginia in 1890 on 1,200 acres of land, including the classification yard. In 1929 the system's primary freight car repair and erecting facility was built at

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660-537: The primary components of the Family Lines System , to become a key portion of CSX Transportation (CSXT) in the 1980s. 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 West Virginia. The rails of

690-615: The rest of the system. Finally, the Hocking Valley was merged into the C&O in April 1930. A small branch railroad was organized in 1903 as the Athens, Amesville and Chauncey Railway . Its trackage was 3.65 miles in 1907, and 5.99 miles in 1908. It was built expressly to service coal mines in the Sugar Creek valley north of Athens, Ohio, and connected to the Hocking Valley Railway mainline just northwest of Athens. It

720-564: The river to Pomeroy was completed in January 1881. The three companies merged in August 1881 to form the Columbus, Hocking Valley and Toledo Railway , which stretched across the state from Toledo to Pomeroy. A short extension near Toledo was built in 1890, connecting to the Lake Shore and Michigan Southern Railway (a New York Central Railroad subsidiary) at Rockwell Junction . The new company entered receivership in February 1897 and

750-641: The system was incorporated in March 1870 as the Gallipolis, McArthur and Columbus Railroad , which would build from Gallipolis on the Ohio River to Logan . It acquired part of an incomplete roadbed graded in the 1850s by the Scioto and Hocking Valley Railroad between Hamden and Logan , but was unable to survive the Panic of 1873. The Columbus and Gallipolis Railway , incorporated in July 1876, tried to complete

780-679: The west end of the mammoth yard at Russell, Kentucky , called the Raceland Car Shops. By the early 1960s the C&O was headquartered in Cleveland, Ohio . 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

810-557: Was built by coal interests, but operated by the Hocking Valley Railway, and was merged into it in 1911. This line never ventured anywhere near Amesville or Chauncey , and did not even technically connect to Athens . After the merger, it was known as the Sugar Creek Branch. Athens, OH Too Many Requests If you report this error to the Wikimedia System Administrators, please include

840-525: Was renamed The Chesapeake and Ohio Railway Company. Conditions improved in the 1880s when coal resources began to be developed and shipped eastward. In 1881 the Peninsula Extension 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 coastwise shipping and transported to

870-789: Was renamed the Virginia Central Railroad . The Commonwealth of Virginia owned a portion of Virginia Central stock and financed the Blue Ridge Railroad to accomplish the task of crossing the first mountain barrier to the west. During the Civil War the Virginia Central played a key role in several battles but was a target for Federal armies. By 1865 it only had five miles of track still in operation and almost no cash to rebuild. Officials realized that they would have to get capital to rebuild from outside

900-754: Was reorganized in February 1899 as the Hocking Valley Railway , which came under the control of a syndicate in December 1902. The stock was distributed among several railroad companies in June 1903, with one-third going to the Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, Chicago and St. Louis Railway ( Pennsylvania Railroad ) and one-sixth each to the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad , Chesapeake and Ohio Railway (C&O), Lake Shore and Michigan Southern Railway ( New York Central Railroad ), and Erie Railroad . The C&O gained control in March 1910, and initially used

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