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C&O for Progress The Chesapeake & Ohio Railway at Mid-Century by Thomas W Dixon
C&O for Progress The Chesapeake & Ohio Railway at Mid-Century by Thomas W Dixon Jr
Hard Cover
176 pages
Copyright 2008
CONTENTS
Introduction / Forward 5
1. About This Book 7
2. "C&O For Progress" -- What Did It Mean 9
3. Background of the Chesapeake and Ohio Railway 13
4. The Pere Marquette Region / Northern Region21
5. Leadership - The Men at the Top25
6. Employees35
7. Public Relations, Advertising, and Chessie41
8. Passenger Service49
9. The Greenbrier69
10. Merchandise Freight Operations73
11. Coal Operations87
12. The C&O's Big Terminals 97
13. Motive Power105
14. Freight Cars121
15. Shops143
16. Post-War Roadway Upgrade153
17. Maintenance of Way, Signals, and Communications 159
18. Research & Development, Test Labs, and Innovation169
19. The End of the Era - The C&O / B&O Merger175
FOREWORD
My career with the C&O began in January 1949, so I was a part of the entire "For Progress" era recounted in this book, which was initiated by C&O Chairman Robert R. Young and carried out by President Walter J. Tuohy and his staff. My career, of course, continued, and after serving as President, Chairman, and CEO of C&O/B&O, Chessie System, and CSX, 1 retired in 1991.
As a financial officer of the company throughout the 1950s and 1960s, I was in a position to understand how the company was doing in this volatile era for American railroading.
When I began work, Young was trying to take over the New York Central, with C&O having just purchased a 10% interest in that company. My first job was as a member of a special team analyzing this investment for President Tuohy's office. Ultimately, C&O and Young could do nothing with its 10% NYC interest because Interstate Commerce Commission would not grant its approval, so it was sold in 1954, the same year that Young left C&O and became Chairman of NYC after one of the most famous corporate proxy fights of the era.
It's interesting that Modern Railroads published its full-magazine treatment of C&O in November 1954, just after Young had departed to his NYC job. It is that Modern Railroads material that is used as the framework for the preparation of this book.
Young and many of the new management men he brought in set the tone for C&O's development in the postwar era. The "For Progress" logo, as well as Young's creation of the Federation for Railway Progress, represented his idea that American railroads were far too complacent and conservative, and did not realize that they were in an entirely new competitive market.
The C&O's guiding idea from the late 1940s onward was that it would lead the way in showing how railroads should operate in a new period of development when they would have to be innovative and forward-looking in order just to keep their position in the American transportation system. Young was proven ultimately right as highways, trucks, airlines, and barges steadily ate into the near monopoly the railroads had enjoyed in long-distance transportation. Railroads were at a distinct disadvantage as government subsidy, either direct or indirect, gave the advantage to these new modes.
Nonetheless, C&O was a solid company with impeccable credentials in the railroad operating community as well as the financial community. Its great advertising and public relations efforts had made it a household name and one of the best known railroads in the country by the late 1940s. The Chessie kitten advertising campaign starting in 1933 had done much in this direction. Young's iconoclastic approach to the industry and the press coverage it generated helped as well.
It fell to me to lead the C&O/B&O, Chessie System, and CSX in the era just after the scope of this book, when the trends and patterns that had been developing in the industry led to the ultimate revitalization of railroading after deregulation in the early 1980s.
The railroads have a great future because of the inherent efficiency they bring to ground transportation, and will again become more and more important as fuel becomes increasingly expensive. The "For Progress" era treated in this book was an exciting one, as the C&O and other railroads transformed from what they had been for the previous century. The era following, when C&O/B&O, Chessie System, and CSX led the way in the rational consolidation of lines, was also a busy, sometimes frantic period, but it ultimately led to a successful transition period that portends the coming of a new railway age that can only blossom in the future.
It was my pleasure to have spent my working life on the grand Chesapeake & Ohio at the pinnacle of its prestige and influence, and to lead it and its successors as they remade themselves. I commend this book as it shows the thinking and attitude of C&O at a key point in the history of American transportation.
Hays T. Watkins, Chairman Emeritus CSX Corporation Richmond, Virginia July 2008
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