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Chesapeake and Ohio Historical Magazine 2010 September 2010 C&o
The Chesapeake and Ohio Historical Magazine September 2010
Finest trains on the road The factual account of the C&O President's special
The historic inspection tour of 1930
This entire issue is devoted to an exceptional article written by long-time member Jesse Smith whose credentials include being a past board member, past operating officer, past magazine editor, and author of numerous major articles in this magazine. He is a locomotive engineer for CSX working out of Russell. He has presented what might be considered a fairly prosaic event, the operation of an inspection train over the C&O, in a dramatic, "you are there" style that brings this history to life.
The management of the company usually took an annual inspection trip to see first hand the operational conditions of the railway. John J. Bernet had come to C&O's presidency in 1929, and this was his second full trip over the line.
The C&O was conducting a program of improvements of unprecedented proportion in 1930. This was part of the third remaking of the system. When Huntington built the C&O west in 1873 he did it on the cheap. The line was poorly built and appointed. When the Vanderbilt and Morgan interests assumed control in 1889, the company initiated a massive upgrading and rebuilding program that lasted through the 1890s. A second remaking of the C&O occurred under George Stevens' leadership from 1900 to 1920: most of the coal branches were built and the "modern" C&O system's trackage completed.
After World War I the C&O embarked on a third major reshaping of its system. What was built during this time formed the foundation for the C&O that performed so well in WWII and the postwar decades.
This massive program of improvements began around 1923 (the same time that the Van Sweringen's took control). It was undoubtedly occasioned by the inadequacies made evident by the WWI traffic increase, and the needs of the ever-expanding coal traffic. This pointed to a need to bring the C&O's physical plant, rolling stock, and motive power up to the highest standards. The money that the C&O was making from the coal trade made allocating funds to these improvements possible. Throughout the 1920s, as business continued to grow, the program of improvements was steadily expanded, reaching a crescendo in the period 1929-1933, when some of the largest expenditures were for the tunnel enlargement program (which finally allowed C&O to operate a double track railroad from Cincinnati to Clifton Forge).
The story of the 1930 inspection train that tells us what the C&O had recently accomplished, and what was ongoing at the time. Every area was touched by the program of improvements: new locomotives by the hundreds, the first Super Power in 1930, the completion of the Northern Subdivision linking the Cincinnati Division with the HV at Columbus in 1928, the purchase of tens of thousands of ever larger freights cars, the coming of air-conditioned passenger trains, the inauguration of The Sportsman
in 1930 and The George Washington in 1932, a public relations campaign of epic proportions, the arrival of Chessie in 1933, the -building of Presque Isle docks at Toledo for the Great Lakes trade, expansion of Newport News" piers and terminals, merger of the HV in 1930, and new ownership and connections with NKP and PM.
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