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Overview | |
---|---|
Headquarters | Cleveland, Ohio |
Reporting mark | B&O C&O WM |
Locale | Delaware Illinois Indiana Kentucky Maryland Michigan New Jersey New York Ohio Ontario Pennsylvania Virginia Washington, D. C. West Virginia |
Dates of operation | February 26th, 1973–June 30th, 1986 |
Successor | CSX Transportation |
Technical | |
Track gauge | 4 ft 8+1⁄2 in (1,435 mm) standard gauge |
Chessie System, Inc. was a holding company that owned the Chesapeake and Ohio Railway (C&O), the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad (B&O), the Western Maryland Railway (WM), and Baltimore and Ohio Chicago Terminal Railroad (B&OCT). Trains operated under the Chessie name from 1973 to 1987.
Headquartered in Cleveland, Ohio, the Chessie System was the creation of Cyrus S. Eaton and his protégé Hays T. Watkins, then president and chief executive officer of the C&O. A chief source of revenue for the Chessie System was coal mined in West Virginia. Another was the transport of auto parts and finished motor vehicles.
"Chessie" had been a popular nickname for the C&O since the 1930s, cemented with an advertising campaign that featured a sleeping kitten named Chessie. The 1970s holding company developed the "Ches-C" emblem: a kitten outline imposed on a circle, creating a rough letter C. This emblem was emblazoned on the front of all Chessie System locomotives, and also served as the "C" in "Chessie System" on the locomotive's flanks, and on other rolling stock.
The beginnings of the Chessie System came from cooperation between the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad (B&O) and the Chesapeake and Ohio Railway (C&O). An announcement from the New York Central (NYC) and Pennsylvania (PRR) railroads in November 1957 that they were considering combining prompted the B&O and C&O to consider a similar move. [1] Ultimately, the financially stronger C&O took control of the B&O in December 1962, though the two railroads kept their separate identities. [2]
The combined C&O/B&O purchased stock in the Western Maryland Railway until it was able to take full control in February 1967, bringing a third railroad into the combined entity, which in 1973 became formally known as the Chessie System after the C&O's historic cat mascot Chessie. [3]
Chessie System was incorporated in Virginia on February 26, 1973, and it acquired the railroads on June 15.
On November 1, 1980, Chessie System merged with Seaboard Coast Line Industries to form CSX Corporation. Initially, the three Chessie System railroads continued to operate separately, even after Seaboard's six Family Lines System railroads were merged into the Seaboard System Railroad on December 29, 1982. That began to change in 1983, when the WM was merged into the B&O. The Chessie image continued to be applied to new and re-painted equipment until July 1, 1986, when CSXT introduced its own paint scheme. In April 1987, the B&O was merged into the C&O. In August 1987, C&O merged into CSX Transportation, a 1986 renaming of the Seaboard System Railroad, and the Chessie System name was retired.
Its subsidiaries included:
The Chessie System company itself directly owned no locomotives or other rolling stock. Instead, equipment was placed on the roster of one of the three component railroads and ownership denoted by the reporting marks C&O, B&O, and WM. All three companies shared a common paint scheme of yellow, vermillion, and blue.
Notable Chessie System locomotives include:
The former Reading Company #2101 (T-1-class 4-8-4) was one of three locomotives that pulled the American Freedom Train in 1975 and 1976. As part of B&O's 150th anniversary celebration in 1977, the Chessie System sent #2101 on a national tour as the "Chessie Steam Special". Painted in the Chessie System motif, the train consisted of the locomotive, two tenders, and 18 to 20 passenger and baggage cars. In March 1979, the locomotive was severely damaged in a fire while stored in a Chessie System roundhouse in Silver Grove, Kentucky. It has since been cosmetically restored to its American Freedom Train paint scheme, and is on static display at the B&O Railroad Museum, although has been exposed to the elements for most of its time there. In October 2023, the locomotive was moved into the museum's shops to undergo a cosmetic restoration. [4]
In 2017, the Lake Shore Railway Historical Society acquired C&O 8272, a GE B30-7. It has been restored in the Chessie System paint scheme and currently resides at the Lake Shore Railway Museum in North East, Pennsylvania, and most recently, an EMD GP15T (C&O 1507) was donated to the B&O Railroad Museum.
In 2015, CSX used decals to decorate two of its locomotives in the livery of predecessor railroads. CSX AC4400CW 366 bears the "Chess-C" and C40-8W 7765 has the "B&O" logo. 366's decal was later damaged by fire and removed.
In June 2023, GE ES44AH unit #1973 entered service, being repaired and painted at CSX shops in Waycross, GA with a CSX blue and yellow color scheme on the front (nose) and cab of the locomotive and throughout the rest of the locomotive, the classic yellow and red Chessie System scheme. It was numbered #1973 in homage to the year the Chessie System was created.
CSX Transportation, known colloquially as simply CSX, is a Class I freight railroad company operating in the Eastern United States and the Canadian provinces of Ontario and Quebec. Operating about 21,000 route miles (34,000 km) of track, it is the leading subsidiary of CSX Corporation, a Fortune 500 company headquartered in Jacksonville, Florida.
The Seaboard System Railroad, Inc. was a US Class I railroad that operated from 1982 to 1986.
The Seaboard Coast Line Railroad was a Class I railroad company operating in the Southeastern United States beginning in 1967. Its passenger operations were taken over by Amtrak in 1971. Eventually, the railroad was merged with its affiliate lines to create the Seaboard System in 1983.
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 of Huntington, West Virginia, was named for him.
The B&O Railroad Museum is a museum and historic railway station exhibiting historic railroad equipment in Baltimore, Maryland. The Baltimore and Ohio Railroad (B&O) company originally opened the museum on July 4, 1953, with the name of the Baltimore & Ohio Transportation Museum. It has been called one of the most significant collections of railroad treasures in the world and has the largest collection of 19th-century locomotives in the U.S. The museum is located in the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad's old Mount Clare Station and adjacent roundhouse, and retains 40 acres of the B&O's sprawling Mount Clare Shops site, which is where, in 1829, the B&O began America's first railroad and is the oldest railroad manufacturing complex in the United States.
The Western Maryland Railway was an American Class I railroad (1852–1983) that operated in Maryland, West Virginia, and Pennsylvania. It was primarily a coal hauling and freight railroad, with a small passenger train operation.
The Capital Subdivision is a railroad line owned and operated by CSX Transportation in the U.S. state of Maryland and the District of Columbia. The line runs from near Baltimore, Maryland, southwest to Washington, D.C., along the former Baltimore and Ohio Rail Road (B&O) Washington Branch. The subdivision's Alexandria Extension provides a connection to Virginia and points south.
Buckingham Branch Railroad is a Class III short-line railroad operating over 275 miles (443 km) of historic and strategic trackage in Central Virginia. Sharing overhead traffic with CSX and Amtrak, the company's headquarters are in Dillwyn, Virginia in the former Chesapeake and Ohio Railway (C&O) station, itself a historic landmark in the community.
The Western Maryland Scenic Railroad (WMSR) is a heritage railroad based in Cumberland, Maryland, that operates passenger excursion trains and occasional freight trains using both steam and diesel locomotives over ex-Western Maryland Railway (WM) tracks between Cumberland and Frostburg. The railroad offers coach and first class service, murder mystery excursions, and special seasonal trips.
This article contains a list of terms, jargon, and slang used to varying degrees by railfans and railroad employees in the United States and Canada. Although not exhaustive, many of the entries in this list appear from time to time in specialist, rail-related publications. Inclusion of a term in this list does not necessarily imply its universal adoption by all railfans and railroad employees, and there may be significant regional variation in usage.
Chesapeake and Ohio 614 is a class "J-3-A" 4-8-4 "Greenbrier" (Northern) type steam locomotive built in June 1948 by the Lima Locomotive Works in Lima, Ohio for the Chesapeake and Ohio Railway (C&O) as a member of the J-3-A class. As one of the last commercially built steam locomotives in the United States, the locomotive was built with the primary purpose of hauling long, heavy, high speed express passenger trains for the Chesapeake & Ohio Railway such as the George Washington and the Fast Flying Virginian.
Reading 2101 is a preserved American class "T-1" 4-8-4 "Northern" type steam locomotive constructed in September 1945 for use by the Reading Company. Constructed from an earlier "I10SA" 2-8-0 "Consolidation"-type locomotive built in March 1923, the 2101 handled heavy coal train traffic for the Reading until being retired from revenue service in 1959. Withheld from scrapping, the 2101 served as emergency backup power for the three other T1 locomotives serving the Reading's "Iron Horse Rambles" excursions until being sold for scrap in 1964.
The Wiregrass Central Railroad is a shortline railroad operating 19.5 miles (31.4 km) of track from a CSX Transportation connection at Waterford, near Newton, to Enterprise, Alabama via the south side of Fort Novosel. The company was initially a subsidiary of Gulf and Ohio Railways and began operations in 1987 following the purchase of the Enterprise Subdivision branch line of CSX Transportation.
The Potomac Eagle Scenic Railroad is a heritage railroad based in Romney, West Virginia.
The Hanover Subdivision is a railroad line owned and operated by CSX Transportation in the U.S. states of Maryland and Pennsylvania. The line runs from Baltimore, Maryland, west to Hagerstown, Maryland, along several former Western Maryland Railway (WM) lines. It meets the Baltimore Terminal Subdivision at its east end, and the Lurgan Subdivision heads both north and west from its west end.
The CL&W Subdivision is a railroad line owned and operated by CSX Transportation in the U.S. state of Ohio. The line runs from a junction with the New Castle Subdivision at Sterling northwest to Lorain along a former Baltimore and Ohio Rail Road line. It junctions with the Cleveland Subdivision at Lester and the Greenwich Subdivision at Grafton.
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 100 miles per hour (160 km/h). 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 No. 490 is the sole survivor of the L-1 class 4-6-4 "Hudson" type steam locomotives. It was built by Alco's Richmond works in 1926 as an F-19 class 4-6-2 "Pacific" type to be used to pull the Chesapeake and Ohio's secondary passenger trains. It was eventually rebuilt in 1946 to become a streamlined 4-6-4 for the C&O's Chessie streamliner. After the Chessie was cancelled, No. 490 remained in secondary passenger service, until it was retired in 1953. It spent several years in storage in Huntington, West Virginia, until 1968, when it was donated to the B&O Railroad Museum in Baltimore, Maryland. It remains on static display at the museum, as of 2023.
The Kentucky Steam Heritage Corporation (KSHCO) is a nonprofit organization based on the border between Irvine and Ravenna, Kentucky. The organization mainly focuses on the restoration of Chesapeake and Ohio K-4 2-8-4 steam locomotive No. 2716 along with other vintage railroad equipment. The organization has plans of turning the surrounding area into its own tourist attraction called the Kentucky Rail Heritage Center through a partnership with the R.J. Corman Railroad Group and CSX Transportation.