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Chesapeake & Ohio Railway at Hawks Nest West Virginia 2000 SC 25 Pages
Chesapeake & Ohio Railway at Hawks Nest West Virginia 2000 SC 25 Pages
By Thomas W. Dixon Jr.
Copyright 2000
25 Pages
Chesapeake & Ohio Historical Society Publication
The Chesapeake & Ohio Railway at Hawks Nest, West Virginia
This pamphlet is a history of the Chesapeake & Ohio I Railway's operations at the stations called Hawks Nest and Macdougal, West Virginia, and the 4.5-mile Hawks Nest Branch to Ansted, West Virginia, and was originally published as an article in the February 2000 issue of the Chesapeake 6- Ohio Historical Magazine.
Summary History of the Chesapeake t Ohio Railway
The Chesapeake & Ohio Railway traces it origin to the Louisa Railroad of Louisa County, Virginia, begun in 1836, and the James River & Kanawha Canal, begun also in Virginia in 1785. By 1850 the railroad had been built from Richmond to present-day Clifton Forge, Virginia, and renamed the Virginia Central. After extensive use and massive damage in the Civil War, the road was reorganized as the Chesapeake & Ohio and was built across West Virginia to Huntington, on the Ohio River, in 1872-73. In 1888 the main line was extended down the left bank of the Ohio and across that stream to Cincinnati. Later, lines were built or purchased in Ohio connecting the road with Great Lakes shipping, and through Indiana to Chicago.
In West Virginia and Kentucky extensive branch lines tapped the rich bituminous coal fields, from which the C&O's wealth has flowed. Coal was and is shipped primarily to Newport News, Virginia, for export, and to Toledo, Ohio, for transfer to lake shipping, and it is used principally for power generation and metals production.
In 1947 the C&O absorbed the Pere Marquette Railway, with which it had been affiliated since the Van Sweringen days of the 1920s. This Michigan-based road had been created at the turn of the century from a maze of short railroads built to handle the lumber and farm product business in fertile Michigan.
Today, the former PM lines form an important source of merchandise freight revenues as well as new automobile haulage.
Though primarily a freight railroad, the C&O long boasted a proud and superbly operated passenger service.
C&O steam locomotive design after the turn of the century reflected a need for greater and greater power to challenge its mountain districts with increasingly heavy trains. The result was the development of some of the finest locomotives in America, including the Mountain (4-8-2) and Allegheny (2-6-6-6) types.
The very name of "Chesapeake & Ohio" conjures scenes of heavy coal drags amid rugged mountains or polished engines and long standard passenger trains.
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