Baltimore
and Ohio Railroad - (en)
The Baltimore and Ohio Railroad (B&O) was one of the oldest railroads
in the United States, with an original line from the port of Baltimore,
Maryland, west to the Ohio River at Wheeling and Parkersburg, West
Virginia. It is now part of the CSX network, and includes the oldest
operational railroad bridge in the world. The B&O also included the
Leiper Railroad, the first permanent railroad in the U.S.
The railroad's former shops in Baltimore, including the Mt. Clare
roundhouse, now house the B&O Railroad Museum.
History
1876 mapTwo men — Philip E. Thomas and George Brown — were the
pioneers of the railroad. They spent the year 1826 investigating railway
enterprises in England, which were at that time being tested in a
comprehensive fashion as commercial ventures. Their investigation
completed, they held an organizational meeting on February 12, 1827,
including about twenty-five citizens, most of whom were Baltimore
merchants or bankers. Chapter 123 of the 1826 Session Laws of Maryland,
passed February 28, 1827, and the Commonwealth of Virginia on March 8,
1827, chartered the Baltimore and Ohio Rail Road Company, with the task of
building a railroad from the port of Baltimore, Maryland west to a
suitable point on the Ohio River. The railroad, formally incorporated
April 24, was intended to provide not only an alternative to, but also a
faster route for Midwestern goods to reach the East Coast than the
seven-year-old, hugely successful, but slow Erie Canal across upstate New
York. Thomas was elected as the first president and Brown the treasurer.
The capital of the proposed company was fixed at five million dollars.
Early Construction
Construction began on July 4, 1828, and the first section, from Baltimore
west to Ellicott's Mills (now known as Ellicott City), opened on May 24,
1830. Further extensions opened to Frederick (including the short
Frederick Branch) December 1, 1831, Point of Rocks April 2, 1832, Sandy
Hook December 1, 1834 (the connection to the Winchester and Potomac
Railroad at Harpers Ferry opening in 1837), Martinsburg May 1842, Hancock
June 1842, Cumberland November 5, 1842, Piedmont July 21, 1851, Fairmont
June 22, 1852, and its terminus at Wheeling, West Virginia (then part of
Virginia) on January 1, 1853.
Table of Cumberland Coal Shipped over B&O and C&O 1842-1865The
state of Maryland granted the B&O a charter to build a line from
Baltimore to Washington, D.C., in 1831, and the Washington Branch was
opened in 1835. This line joined to the original mainline at Relay,
Maryland, crossing the Patapsco on the Thomas Viaduct, which remains one
of the B&O's signature structures. This line was partially funded by
the state, and was operated separately until the 1870s, with the state
taking a 25% cut of gross passenger receipts. This line was built in stone,
much like the original mainline; by this time, however, strap rail was no
longer used for new construction. Most of the stone bridges did not last
long, being washed out in floods and replaced at first by Bollman Truss
Bridges. The Annapolis and Elk Ridge Railroad to Annapolis connected to
this line at Annapolis Junction, Maryland, in 1840. As an unwritten
condition for the charter, it was understood that the state would not
charter any competing line between Baltimore and Washington.
Civil War
American Civil War raids, raiders and raider bases involving the B&O
Railroad:
Some famous battles and raids
The Great Train Raid of 1861, May 1861
The Martinsburg Train Raid, June 20-23, 1861
The Leesburg Train Raid, August 7, 1861
The Romney Expedition, January 1 through January 24, 1862
Various Raids of Brigadier General A. G. Jenkins, Fall, 1862
The Jones-Imboden Raid, April 24 through May 22, 1863
The Battle of Monocacy, July 9, 1864
Gilmor's Raid, July 11, 1864
Confederate raiders and units which raided the B&O Railroad:
Lieutenant General Thomas J. "Stonewall" Jackson and many units
under his command
Lieutenant General Jubal Anderson Early and many units under his command
Brigadier General Turner Ashby and his "Black Horse" cavalry
Brigadier General John D. Imboden and the 62nd Virginia Mounted Infantry
(1st Partisan Rangers)
Brigadier General Albert G. Jenkins' and the 8th Virginia Cavalry
Brigadier General William E. "Grumble" Jones and the
"Laurel Brigade"
Colonel John S. Mosby's "Mosby's Raiders"
Major Harry Gilmor's "Gilmor's Raiders"
Captain John H. McNeill's "McNeill's Rangers"
Cities involved in raiding the B&O Railroad
Winchester in the Civil War
Harpers Ferry, West Virginia
Westward by merger
A steel and stone bridge was built across the Ohio River between Bellaire
and Wheeling in 1871, connecting the B&O to the Central Ohio Railroad
which it had leased starting in 1866. This provided a direct rail
connection to Columbus, Ohio and the lease marked the beginning of a
series of expansions to the west and north.
Other railroads included in the B&O were:
Winchester and Potomac Railroad and Winchester and Strasburg Railroad from
1867. This pair of lines connected with the B&O at Harper's Ferry,
West Virginia and constituted the only significant B&O trackage in
present day Virginia.
Sandusky, Mansfield and Newark Railroad leased through the Central Ohio in
1869.
Pittsburgh and Connellsville Railroad from 1871. This was the B&O
entry into Pittsburgh, thwarting the denial of a Pennsylvania charter to
the B&O.
Somerset and Cambria Railroad from 1879.
Buffalo Railroad from 1880.
West Virginia and Pittsburgh Railroad from 1890.
Columbus and Cincinnati Midland Railroad leased through Central Ohio in
1890.
Monongahela River Railroad from 1900.
Marietta and Cincinnati Railroad from 1882. This was initially renamed as
the Cincinnati, Washington and Baltimore Railroad in and then again to the
Baltimore and Ohio Southwestern Railroad in 1889.
The B&OSW absorbed the Ohio and Mississippi Railroad in 1893, giving
the B&O a connection to St. Louis, Missouri, and finally the B&OSW
disaapeared into the rest of the system in 1900.
Ohio River Railroad from 1901.
Pittsburgh Junction Railroad from 1902.
Pittsburgh and Western Railroad from 1902. This was originally a narrow
gauge system which was standard gauged from 1883 to 1911. It formed the
main B&O line west from Pittsburgh. The line passed the Mars Train
Station in Mars, Pennsylvania northwest of Pittsburgh.
Cleveland Terminal and Vally Railroad from 1909. This was the B&O's
entry into Cleveland, Ohio.
Cleveland, Lorain and Wheeling Railroad from 1909.
Chicago Terminal Transfer Company, reorganized in 1910 as the Baltimore
and Ohio Chicago Terminal Railroad. This switching line was always
operated as a separate company.
Salisbury Railroad near Pittsburgh, operated from 1912.
Cincinnati, Hamilton and Dayton Railroad from 1912.
Morgan and Kingwood Railroad from 1922.
Coal and Coke Railroad from 1920.
Cincinnati, Indianapolis and Western Railroad from 1927. This was
originally part of the Cincinnati, Hamilton and Dayton, and gave the
B&O a connection to Springfield, Illinois.
Buffalo, Rochester and Pittsburgh Railway in 1932.
This gave the B&O a line into New York state.
Buffalo and Susquehanna Railroad from 1932. Part of the line was severed
from the rest of the system by flooding, and became part of the Wellsville,
Addison and Galeton Railroad in 1955.
(This list omits certain short lines.)
The Chicago and Alton Railroad was purchased by the B&O in 1931 and
renamed the Alton Railroad. It was always operated separately and was
eventually bought by the Gulf, Mobile and Ohio Railroad after receivership
in 1942.
On July 20, 1877 there were bloody riots in Baltimore, Maryland from
Baltimore and Ohio Railroad workers. Nine rail workers were killed at the
hands of the Maryland militia. The next day workers in Pittsburgh,
Pennsylvania staged a sympathy strike that was also met with an assault by
the state militia; Pittsburgh then erupted into widespread rioting.
New lines in Maryland
In 1866 the B&O began constructing the Metropolitan Branch west out of
Washington, and was completed in 1873 after years of erratic effort.
Before this line was laid, rail traffic west of Washington had to travel
first to Relay or Baltimore before joining the main line. The line cut a
more or less straight line from Washington to Point of Rocks, Maryland,
with many grades and large bridges. Upon the opening of this line, through
passenger traffic was rerouted through Washington, and the old main line
from Point of Rocks to Relay was reduced to secondary status as far as
passenger service was concerned. Rebuilding in the early 1900s and double
tracking in 1928 increased capacity; the "branches" became the
de facto mainline, though the Old Main Line was retained as relief route.
Meanwhile the Pennsylvania Railroad acquired the Philadelphia, Wilmington
and Baltimore Railroad in the early 1880s, cutting off the B&O's
access to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The state of Maryland had stayed
true to its implicit promise not to grant competing charters for the
Baltimore/Washington line, but when a charter was granted in 1860 to build
a line from Baltimore to Pope's Creek in southern Maryland, lawyers for
the Pennsylvania RR picked up on a clause in the unfulfilled charter
allowing branches up to twenty miles long, from any point and in any
direction. The projected route, passing through what is now Bowie,
Maryland, could have a "branch" constructed that would allow
service into Washington. The Pennsylvania picked up the charter through
the agency of the Baltimore and Potomac Railroad and in 1872 service
between Baltimore and Washington began. At the same time the PRR took
control of the B&O's connections to southern lines.
In response, the B&O chartered the Philadelphia Branch in Maryland and
the Baltimore and Philadelphia Railroad in Delaware and Pennsylvania and
built a parallel route, finished in 1886. The Baltimore Belt Line, opened
in 1895, connected the main line to the Philadelphia Branch without the
need for a car ferry across the Patapsco River, but the cost of
constructing the Howard Street Tunnel drove the B&O to bankruptcy in
1896. Two other lines were built in attempts to reconnect to the south.
The Alexandria Branch was built in 1874, starting from Hyattsville,
Maryland and ending at a ferry operation at Shepherd's Landing. The Ferry
operation continued until 1901 when the south end of the branch was
realigned to link to the PRR trackage to Potomac Yard in Alexandria.
Before this connection was made, however, another branch was built around
the west side of Washington. This line was intended to cross the Potomac
just north of the D.C. line, to conitnue southwest to the Southern Railway
in Fairfax, Virginia, and if possible to Quantico, Virginia. The
Georgetown Branch was started in 1892 and reached Chevy Chase, Maryland
the same year. Financial problems forced a halt to construction, and by
the time the line was completed in 1910 there was no longer any point to
the river crossing. Thus the branch largely served wholesale and heating
coal customers in the Maryland suburbs and in Georgetown. The line cut
directly across the various creeks, and as a result required a short
tunnel and what was said to be the longest wood trestle on the railroad
over Rock Creek. The line was abandoned in 1986 by CSXT and is presently
used in part as the right-of-way for the Capital Crescent Trail.
The 20th century
The Chesapeake and Ohio Railroad took control of the B&O in 1963, and
incorporated it, along with the Western Maryland Railway, into the Chessie
System in 1973. In 1980, the Chessie System merged with the Seaboard
System Railroad to create CSX. In 1986, the B&O finally went out of
existence as a formal corporate existence when it formally merged with the
C&O (which itself formally merged with CSX later that same year). At
the height of railroading's golden age, the B&O was one of several
trunk lines uniting the northeast quadrant of the United States into an
industrial zone. It marked the southern border and corresponded to the New
York Central's marking of the northern border. The Pennsy and the Erie
railroads worked the center. The corners of this map are Baltimore in the
southeast, Albany in the northeast, Chicago in the northwest, and St.
Louis in the southwest.
Early engineering
Carrollton ViaductWhen construction began on the B&O in the 1820s,
railroad engineering was in its infancy. Unsure exactly which materials
would suffice, the B&O erred on the side of sturdiness and built many
of its early structures of granite. Even the track bed to which iron strap
rail was affixed consisted of the stone.
Though the granite soon proved too unforgiving and expensive for track,
most of the B&O's bridges have survived until the present, and many
are still in active railroad use by CSX. Baltimore's Carrollton Viaduct,
named in honor of Charles Carroll of Carrollton (who laid the cornerstone),
was the B&O's first bridge, and is the world's oldest railroad bridge
still in use. The Thomas Viaduct in Relay, Maryland was the longest bridge
in the United States upon its completion in 1835, and remains in use as
well. The B&O made extensive use of the Bollman iron truss bridge in
the mid-1800s; its durability and ease of assembly aided faster railroad
construction.
As the B&O built west from Baltimore in 1830, it followed the banks of
the Patapsco River upstream to the water's source at Parrs Spring near
present-day Mount Airy, Maryland. At the time little data about the
operation of steam locomotives was available, and consequently the B&O
was uncertain if metal wheels would grip the metal rails sufficiently to
pull a train up to the top of Parrs Ridge. The railroad decided to
construct two inclined planes on each side of the ridge along which teams
of horses, and perhaps steam-powered winches, would assist pulling the
trains uphill. The planes, about a mile long on each side of the ridge,
quickly proved an operational bottleneck, and before the decade of the
1830s ended the B&O built a 5.5 mile long alternate route that became
known as the Mount Airy Loop. The planes were quickly abandoned and
forgotten, though some artifacts survive to the present
Branches
B&O roundhouse and station complex, Martinsburg, West Virginia (©2001
A.E. Crane, courtesy of byways.org).Mount Airy
The Mount Airy Branch is the surviving, in-use portion of the 1839-opened
Mount Airy Loop. The Loop had been mainline track until superseded by the
Mount Airy Cutoff and Tunnel in 1902.
Frederick
The Frederick Branch was built as part of the original line, opening on
December 1, 1831. The continuation of the main line from Frederick
Junction opened April 2, 1832.
Patuxent Branch
The Patuxent Branch was constructed in the 1880s and split off from the
Washington Branch at Savage, Maryland to serve a mill, a quarry, and other
small industry. After 1925, the line was gradually cut back, and
disconnected completely in 2005.
