Baltimore and Ohio and West Virginia Mainline

Trains Magazine General Discussion
41

The thing all these people are trying to tell you is that the Raton line, although surely a candidate both for straight and for dual-mode-lite electrification, is far down the list of national priorities for electrification or dual-mode-lite (or hybrid power with wayside storage) conversion.

It is also relatively low down on the list of projects that state agencies have much of an interest in.

I confess to thinking that if there is sufficient interest in high speed on this route, that finishing the cutoff that was stalled in 1937, and perhaps extending it as proposed to get around Glorieta as well, makes far more sense that expensively restoring 4+%. If national-scope Keynesian funds exist to do what ATSF should have done then – and I think it is more practical than ever, with the Chinese investments in TLM and self-launching viaduct construction – then spend it there and don’t waste time trying to turbocharge a sow’s ear.

42

Overmod,

It was actually the Parkersburg-Cincinnati line that I wrote to ORDC about. I’m afraid the Raton Pass line might just be a “basket case”. Nevertheless, the feds might end up throwing money at it anyway since it’s part of the basic Amtrak “National System”. We’ll just have to wait and see what happens there.

FMC

43

I have missed something. What does Parkersburg-Cincinnati offer that upgrading Huntington-Cincinnati doesn’t? Is there really enough prospective COFC/TOFC out of a ‘daylighted’ route to and from the Port of Baltimore to justify multiple connections to get through Indiana to St. Louis for it?

44

A big federal scheme to electrify rail lines will focus more traffic on these mainlines, and lessen the chance of rebuilding long abandoned secondary lines.

45

I hate to say this but Fred sounds like a hoarder. He wants to save everything “just in case”.

46

BaltACD: My Great Uncle Jimmy Diehl was the operator/agent at Mason, WV (south of Parkersburg) for many years. I had to laugh out loud when you wrote:

I can’t imagine anyone ever thinking of that line as a “Main Line” to anywhere. [:D]

One of my earliest memories is of “helping” Uncle Jimmy by hooping a “19” order to the crew of an approaching Q4 (?). The fireman had to come almost to the bottom of the steps to reach the order held up for him by a scrawny 8-year old who was scared stiff at the size of that engine bearing down on him.

47

I’d like to add a few thoughts, and a little history.

The Northwestern Virginia Railroad built the line between Grafton and Parkersburg, opening it in 1857 to form a more-or-less continuous link between Tidewater at Baltimore and the Mississippi at St. Louis. The Northwestern Virginia was a B&O subsidiary, while the Central Ohio RR and Ohio & Mississippi RR were closely allied with the B&O.

The B&O had reached Wheeling, on the Ohio River, in late 1852. But that was largely a political decision to placate the State of Virginia. The B&O had very much wanted to hit the Ohio River Valley further to the south, partly because the Ohio was unimproved, and water levels fluctuated more the closer to Pittsburgh you got. Parkersburg was a better, and in winter a more reliably ice-free, port.

It is important to keep in mind that in those days, St. Louis was older, more prosperous, and generally more important than Chicago, which until 1833 or so was a mere frontier outpost.

At the end of the Civil War, the B&O’s operating scheme was as follows:

The “Main Stem” comprised four divisions of roughly 100 miles each: Baltimore to Martinsburg, Martinsburg to Piedmont, Piedmont to Grafton, and Grafton to Wheeling.

The B&O opened the Frederick Branch in 1831, Washington Branch in 1835, and other branchs from the Main Stem. When the B&O fully absorbed the Northwestern Virginia after a few years, it simply called it the Parkersburg Branch in similar fashion. But it was always considered a main line route.

Until after WW II, there was a robust amount of local, long-haul, and bridge traffic on the St. Louis line. There many several reasons that dried up.

First was the general tendency for American industry to reinvent itself more-or-less continually–constant mergers, factory closings, consolidation, and greater efficiency. That cost a great deal of

48

John Hankey,

I think that is a good historical summary and analysis. Thanks for shedding more light on this issue.

Regards,

Fred M. Cain

49

The reality is that Cincinnati is the only ‘big’ city on a nominal straight line between Baltimore/Washington and St. Louis. To include Columbus & Indianpolis on such a route would add hundreds of miles to the overall route.

50

But any railroad between Baltimore and St. Louis will be ridiculously far from a nominal straight airline, too.

To make this an optimized high-speed bridge route for intermodal traffic – likely the only service that would ‘benefit’ from a shorter route with insignificant online traffic generation – would require far more expense than, say, the Pennsylvania put into a far faster route across Ohio and Indiana, via Columbus, both to St. Louis and toward Chicago. I don’t think this is money the B&O ever had access to.

51

You know one thing that just occurred to me here after watching that PennCentral film, the taxpayers spent HUGE amounts of money to completely rebuild Conrail’s St Louis line. On the other hand, taxpayers probably pain NO money to Chessie System for enlarging the tunnels or straightening curves on the Parkersburg line. This might’ve put the ex-B&O line at somewhat of a disadvantage following the Conrail era.

It’s hard to believe that it had no effect. Indeed, the decision to downgrade and close the line completely wasn’t made until 1985. By that time Conrail had a steel superhighway to St. Louis.

So, I still think the whole thing is most unfortunate. “The Nation Pays Again”

Regards,

Fred M. Cain

52

On the gripping hand, though – taxpayers may have paid some during the lifetime of Harley’s Hornet (the Potomac aka Parkersburg Turbo) and the West Virginian service that followed it. Not that clearancing tunnels would be part of that – but added stack clearance on a through route to/from Baltimore would not have been double-stack to any great degree anyway, at least not originating at any facility on the wrong side of the Howard Street tunnel And of course there was less than no clearance issue for single-stacks in wells…

If strategic TOFC/COFC service from the East to St. Louis was a goal, putting money in the Conrail line made better sense. You’d throw a mint of money at that line through Cincinnati and still have an operational sow’s ear by comparison. In a deregulated, more competitive world where freight cost the same to send by either route, there might be a call for making a route somewhat less uncompetitive operationally. Once you’d gotten into Staggers et al. much of this was gone, and in addition there was the misfortune of All Those Redundant Conrail Tracks to be considered.

53

The B&O didn’t BUILD the line - they bought and/or merged with separate companies that built the various sections of the line West of Grafton.

The B&O itself - built less than half the physical plant that was operated at the B&O Railroad of the pre-C&O merger era. Most was from the purchase or merger of various other companies.

54

I know this. I also know that getting it to support anything larger than a ~1900 MCB freight car with archbar trucks pulled by early steam would have implied more or less complete rebuilding – probably multiple rebuildings by the time heavy and fast bridge traffic developed.

55

Railroading from the laying of the first stone of the B&O on July 4, 1828 up to today has been a never ending series of rebuilding of the physical plant to higher and higher standards. Today’s railroads are not ‘finished products’ they are in the process of being rebuilt to continue to exist in 2030, 2040, 2050 and beyond.

56

Just a few things that I looked up or thought of…

St Louis is only the 20th largest metro area in the United States. It may have been important once as an interchange point but it’s not important as a destination point.

Balt can correct me if I’m wrong, but wasn’t St Louis mostly EB intermodal? If so, the originating western carrier has a big say-so in where they want to interchange. They also want the longest haul possible.

Even with enlarged Panama Canal, I believe that most container traffic at East Coast ports is for “local” destinations under probably 300-400 miles. I doubt if much is interchanged with the western roads. What is can be handled by the current interchanges. Another thing to remember is that the merger movement changes things completely. The B&O and then Chessie were basically Northeasten quadrant railroads. Once they merged with the Seaboard System, that opend up the southern interchanges. So stuff that came east that B&O wanted at St Louis can now go via Memphis or New Orleans if they aren’t for the Northeast.

57

I thnk the PRR “Panhandle” route across central Ohio and Indiana, between Pittsburg and St. Louis via Columbus, would have been a superior route from St. Louis to the Mid-Atlantic region. It also parallels I-70, and a railroad/interstate co-located should be attractive to industry. Most of the route is still intact, except for the middle section between Dayton and Indianapolis. I would much rather see that restored, rather than the B&O line.

58

I have the impression that St. Louis had far more promise as an interchange point than it actually ever enjoyed – looking at the physical ways transcontinental traffic would actually go through the area might tend to confirm this. A number of railroads had ‘natural’ best gateway connections through there, but chose to route traffic north to Iowa or Chicago, to name two, instead.

Note that St. Louis built one of the largest union stations at the time – I’ll have to check if in fact is was the largest when built in 1894 – on the promise that much of the transcontinental traffic from the Northeast to Southwestern points would go through there instead of Chicago. I suspect that at least some of this foundered on the specific fates of railroads and their combinations in this general era, particularly the spectacular failure of the Gould roads between roughly 1906 (when the Ramsay Survey offered by far the fastest route to New York) and the fallout of the panic of 1907. There were factors favoring Chicago in particular as the gateway to the routes that then mattered, and I don’t think there was ever quite enough effort in the period of full regulation to make a St. Louis route distinctively competent over a longer but generally far better trafficked one.

As just noted, the ex-Panhandle route (part of which became the Ohio Central of sainted memory) is a natural high-speed connection between what remains of a Northeast industrial traffic source and a relatively uncongested route west. What may make a measurable difference here is the plan to rebuild the Merchant’s Bridge with straight access and a good ballasted deck; if this were properly CBTC-signaled a tremendous amount of priority freight traffic could cross the Mississippi here, with generally better routes than available currentl

59

I have the impression that St. Louis had far more promise as an interchange point than it actually ever enjoyed – looking at the physical ways transcontinental traffic would actually go through the area might tend to confirm this. A number of railroads had ‘natural’ best gateway connections through there, but chose to route traffic north to Iowa or Chicago, to name two, instead.

Note that St. Louis built one of the largest union stations at the time – I’ll have to check if in fact is was the largest when built in 1894 – on the promise that much of the transcontinental traffic from the Northeast to Southwestern points would go through there instead of Chicago. I suspect that at least some of this foundered on the specific fates of railroads and their combinations in this general era, particularly the spectacular failure of the Gould roads between roughly 1906 (when the Ramsay Survey offered by far the fastest route to New York) and the fallout of the panic of 1907. There were factors favoring Chicago in particular as the gateway to the routes that then mattered, and I don’t think there was ever quite enough effort in the period of full regulation to make a St. Louis route distinctively competent over a longer but generally far better trafficked one.

As just noted, the ex-Panhandle route (part of which became the Ohio Central of sainted memory) is a natural high-speed connection between what remains of a Northeast industrial traffic source and a relatively uncongested route west. What may make a measurable difference here is the plan to rebuild the Merchant’s Bridge with straight access and a good ballasted deck; if this were properly CBTC-signaled a tremendous amount of priority freight traffic could cross the Mississippi here, with generally better routes than available currently

60

Overmod,

Uh-oh. Are you insinuating that it might be worth considering rebuilding some abandoned lines or am I misunderstanding that by a long shot? If you are even remotely suggesting such blasphemy, you are starting to think dangerously a little bit like me. :slight_smile:

But, in all seriousness, I am baffled about why the railroads look upon the St. Louis Gateway and somewhat unfavorable.

They keep complaining and complaining about congestion in and around Chicago so it seems like St. Louis might be a way to bypass the mess at least as far as true transcontinental traffic is concerned.

Traffic - esp hot intermodal traffic - moving from the Northeast could be turned over to the You Pee’s ex-MoPac line at St. Louis then routed over the former Golden State line west of KC to the Southwest.

It’s a shame in my own opinion that we actually lost BOTH the ex B&O line from Grafton AND the ex-PRR “Panhandle” line. Guys on our group might not agree with my assessment on this but I have communicated with some others who do. I don’t know what can be done about it. For CSX it appears that the best solution would be to really beef up their Cumberland-Greenwich, OH-Indianapolis route into a real speedway which might at least compensate for it being so circuitous. But first things first. They really need to address the Howard Street Tunnel in Baltimore.

The CSX route from Selkirk to St. Louis really isn’t too bad, though.

Regards,

FMC