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Ex-Baltimore and Ohio Lines in Northwestern Pennsylvania by Robert Burns Soft Co
Ex-Baltimore & Ohio Lines in Northwestern Pennsylvania by Robert W Burns
Soft Cover
68 pages
Copyright 1999
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Knox and Kane Railroad2
Buffalo and Pittsburgh Railroad44
Chessie System at Cumberland, Maryland66
B&O - A Final Look68
INTRODUCTION
The lines in northwest Pennsylvania represented just a small part of The Baltimore and Ohio system. From Washington, D.C. a line run north to Philadelphia, with the Reading and Central of New Jersey Railroads handled both freight and passenger trains for B&O from Philadelphia north to Jersey City.
From Washington the mainline ran west to Cumberland, Maryland. where the mainline split. One line headed west through West Virginia, the southern parts of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, and finally ending at St. Louis. The other mainline headed north from Cumberland to Pittsburgh, and then west through northern Ohio, Indiana into Chicago.
Numerous other lines branched off these mainlines, hitting most of the major cities in Ohio, and running to the ports of Toledo, Sandusky, Lorain, Cleveland and Fairport Harbor on Lake Erie. Mostly coal was shipped north, and iron ore south back to the steel plants in Ohio and Pennsylvania.
The B&O was America's first common carrier railroad chartered in 1827, with actual construction starting on July 4, 1828. By 1950, B&O had roughly 10,000 miles of track in thirteen states.
In the early 1950's, the Eisenhower Administration brought forth the Interstate Highway System. By the early 1970's, thousands of miles of four lane interstates paralleled the railroads through out the United States. You could drive a truck now from New York City and travel to anywhere on the west coast on a federally funded highway.
Railroads on the other hand had to maintain and pay taxes on all of their right of ways, and were unable to lower their freight rates, thanks to the government which for years had control over what the railroads could charge. This control was originally started to keep individual railroads from becoming monopolies, but in the end destroyed a lot of them. This allowed trucking companies to undercut the railroads rates, and took huge amounts of traffic away.
By the early 60's, the B&O was in financial trouble. In 1963 the Chesapeake and Ohio, which was the same size as B&O but financially stronger, acquired control of the B&O. C&O helped fund a lot of track improvements, and new equipment, that would help B&O to continue to operate. Eventually C&O, B&O and WM would merge to form Chessie System, and then CSX with the merger with Seaboard System.
In the 1960's other railroads were also realizing that mergers were the only answer to their survival. Many parallel routes were eliminated, and many lines single tracked to cut down on maintenance. Rail transportation looked like a thing of the past for many.
But in 1980 the Stagger Rail Act was passed, which let railroads regulate their own rates, and ease procedures on mergers and abandonments. Two of the lines cast off from this act were the Knox and Kane, and Buffalo and Pittsburgh Railroads, which could operate the lines cheaper with non union employees.
Railroads slowly started gaining traffic back, but a change in thinking from management had to be reversed, which since the 1950's had been to keep down sizing. These cut backs over the years would come back to haunt the railroads when in the late 80's and 90's the traffic levels would bring the slimmed down rail system to capacity. Major rebuilding projects were started and are still being carried out to help the railroads get back to where they were 50 years ago.
Robert W. Burns February 10, 1999
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