Does anyone know what CSX stands for? I know the fuller name is CSX transportation systems, but I’m not sure about the CSX part. If it doesn’t stand for anything, then where does it come from?
Hi Thayman
welcome to the forums.to answer your question c = chessie(C&O B&O WM)
s = seaboard (ACL SAL L&N and others) and the x is the mulitiplication sign.showing a railroad grows when the 2 merged.Trains had a story about csx called" whats in a name" told story how corporate lawyers went through the process of naming the new railroad.
stay safe
Joe
I have always heard that the “x” was the part that stood for “and others”.
Usually an “x” labeled on a railroad car signifies that it is not owned by a railroad.
Just give me back the old C&O!!! ; PLEASE!!!
That’s funny, I heard that it was because the two roads crossed.[;)] When i read the article that Joe is talking about, I got the impression that CSX was just a temporary name that the lawyers came up with, and then it ended up sticking.
Also, they had to become CSXT for that very reason about “x” denoting a leaser Jim.
Oh, and by the way, I have seen two C&O hoppers in regular service lately. I see the gondolas on MW all the time, but it seemes strange to see those suckers still in revenue service.
Corporate lawers,that figures! [:(!] Normal people could have come up with a NAME for the railroad
C=Consolidated, S=Systems, X=Holding Company, (as in "leasing company, like as LAKX=LAKeland Electric & Water Utilities [Lakeland, FL], X=leased Bethlehem Johnstown rapid discharge hoppers). I expect several pages of suggestions, this is the most plausable I’ve heard. Also, let’s hear what you think it should mean! acj.
CSX TRANPORTATION CORPORATION is the name of the company . CSX is not the reporting mark.
Go to the link below to see reporting marks used by the company. There are more than 30 of them[:0]
http://www.trainscan.com/data/mark/mark_n.html
The Union Pacific has more than 60[:0][:0]
Corporate Stupidity X= multiplied
It is Chessie Seaboard (Combination or multiple I am not sure). CSX was the merger name given by the lawers of Chessie and Seaboard for all of the merger applications, and in the end, i guess they were so used to it (And they probably argued if Chessie or Seaboard would be dominant afterword) that they just added Transportation and left it as it was.
This is what I have learned from working in a B&O/Chessie museum with old railroad workers.
JoeKoh has the ‘Official Party Line’ that CSX has been peddling since the corporations inception Nov. 1, 1980. The Corporate offices were located at Richmond, VA as opposed to Chessie Systems, Cleveland corporate HQ and Seaboard’s Jacksonville.
The CSX Transporation nomenclature didn’t surface until about 1986 when Re-Orgs and Plans to truly MERGE the companies began to be implemented…until that time both Chessie and Seaboard basically ran their own shows…subsequently all operating department jobs were moved to Jacksonville…after 1990 outside of field T&E and operating supervision, the only part of Chessie that remained in Baltimore was Chessie Computer Systems and that was being pared down over time…In the late 80’s the various companies the comprise CSX were all officially merged to form CSX Transportation and the the official reporting marks of CSXT.
As I recall from the article in TRAINS, the X didn’t mean anything, but they never came up with anything to replace it, so it stuck. In fact, I got the impression the CSX was just a placeholder that never got replaced by a more suitable name.
Here’s a link to a Trains story titled “How csx got it’s name”. http://www.trains.com/content/dynamic/articles/000/000/002/997majiu.asp
I thought this qutoe was pretty funny from the story.
"At one point, and in jest, Watkins said at a luncheon in the executive dining room in Cleveland’s Terminal Tower that the new company should be called First American Railway Transportation System. He added with a smile that the slogan could be, “We go like the wind.”
Though in the story it makes it sound lik that it wasn’t lawyers but how the paper work had to be filed that put the x at the end. C infact stands for Chessie and the S for seaboard.
THe storys a short pleasant read and it should answer the question.
Andrew Miller
From CSX’s website:
Chicken S%$# Xpress
Both CSX, and NS formed in 1982. CSXT is a reporting mark, and is listed in the previous mentioned link. I’m enjoying the more informative links, I claim no final word. If you know something about this, write it-that’s why we have a forum. I heard BNSF means By Norfolk Southern Fast! An owner of two of the passenger coach cars on an excursion told me Consolidated Systems, and that sounded good at the time, however I do remember the poster showing two new SD50’s, on diverging tracks, close enough to shake hands, and also two post '80 GP40-2’s with two employee’s actually shaking hands, So… Chessie Seaboard sounds good. I remember being told the Chessie System employee’s disagreed with the Family Lines/Seaboard System Tampa Uceta GP16’s, because they had retired all their first generation Geeps (Sort of a Brotherhood thing), and chessie had a slew of GP40’s. I caught a glimse of a Chessie System B30-7 from the Hwy 301 overpass, at the depot way down in Ocala, FL in '88, and fell in love with the cat, and bought the Athearn model U30B. That HO model engine(8212), now wears Nashville & Eastern colors, #5340. Chessie, Seaboard, Gone, But Never Forgotten!acj.