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Chesapeake & 0hio Railway In Hinton West Virginia Dixon Eckle Simonton Soft Cove
Chesapeake & 0hio Railway In Hinton West Virginia
Thomas W Dixon, Jr - Allen Eckle - William E. Simonton, III
The Chesapeake & Ohio Historical Society
Copyright 2011
Table of Contents
Introduction
The Chesapeake & Ohio Railway in Hinton West Virginia
Hinton Industries, Freight, and Passengers
Hinton Industries and Shippers
Passenger Business
Passenger Train Service
Motive Power
C&O Facilities in Hinton
Roundhouse
Coaling Station
Passenger Station
Freight Station
Mallet House
The Railroad YMCA
Stock Pens
CW Cabin MX Cabin
Yard Office
The Chesapeake & Ohio Railway reached Hinton in early fall, 1872, as it built its line westward across the new state of West Virginia.
The C&O began in 1836 in central Virginia as the Louisa Railroad to carry farm products to market. By 1850 it had changed its name to Virginia Central and had a line of road running from Richmond to Charlottesville, Va. In the era 1850-1857 Virginia Central built the mainline westward to the foot of Alleghany Mountain at Jackson's River Station, present-day Clifton Forge, Virginia. At Covington, ten miles further west, the Virginia Central was supposed to connect with the Covington & Ohio Railroad. The Covington & Ohio was sponsored by the Commonwealth of Virginia as part of its program to support and subsidize "internal improvements." Much grading and tunnel work was done on the Covington & Ohio route across the trans-mountain region of Virginia in the late 1850s, but the War Between the States intervened in 1861, and work was suspended. During the war the Virginia Central was an important Confederate lifeline, carrying large supplies and materials as well as troops to and from battles. At the end of the war it was in bad condition, and out of operation. By April 1865 the road was back in service over its whole line, and the owners were anxious to build to the Ohio, the old goal, but little capital was available. Collis P. Huntington, who was just completing the Central Pacific link of the Transcontinental Railroad became interested and purchased control of the line. The Virginia Central was renamed the Chesapeake & Ohio in recognition of its new horizons, and the new state of West Virginia consolidated the Covington & Ohio holdings into the new company.
In 1867 the line had reached White Sulphur Springs, West Virginia. The route west was through the largely uncharted wilderness of southern West Virginia down the Greenbrier to the New River and thence to the Kanawha and finally to the Ohio. From 1869 through 1873 the new C&O built this line in some of the roughest territory in the east, especially the New River Gorge west of Hinton.
In the era of early railroad operations, a change of locomotives and crews, and reshuffling of trains was required about every 60-80 miles, so terminals with roundhouses, yards, machine shops and other support facilities had to be established along the line. It was determined at an early date that such a terminal would be desirable at about the spot where the Greenbrier River emptied into the New River, a spot that would become Hinton.
The line from White Sulphur Springs to the mouth of Greenbrier was built in 1870-72, including the heavy work at Big Bend Tunnel, at Talcott, about 10 miles
east of Hinton. The site that the C&O intended for its yard and terminal was on land that had been farmed by John Hinton and Isaac Ballangee. Hinton ran a ferry across New River at this point. Indeed, Hinton took C. P. Huntington on his famous trip down the New River by bateau when the financier decided that he wanted to tour the proposed route of the new railroad in 1869.
The site was not only at the confluence of the Greenbrier and the New Rivers, but also near the mouth of the Bluestone River as it emptied into the New, so this region had long been a focus of early traders and others using the waterways as means of transport by canoe or bateau.
About 1870 the C&O purchased the Ballangee land, consisting of 165 acres, for $3,600.00. The railroad used a part of this land to lay out its Hinton yard and facilities, and then conveyed the rest to the
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