Chesapeake & OhioHISTORICAL MAGAZINE

Volume XX, No . 12

December, 1988

Editorial STAFF:DONALD R. TRASER

Editor-in-chief128 South Laurel StreetRichmond, Virginia 23220EVERETT N . YOUNG

Associate Editor105V,. Drive (Current News)Pikeville, Kentucky 41501CARL W. SHAVER

Associate Editor240 Green valley Drive

(Locomotive & Cars)Lombard, Illinois 60148ROBERT F . (TED) LUCE

Associate Editor3105 N. 400 West Street

(Modeling)Weal Lafayette, Indiana 47906ROBERT L . HARVEY

Assistant EditorRUSS SCHOOFAssistant EditorMARK W. DELAWYER

Assistant Editor/ EngineeringWe welcome your contribution .. Please send items of historical interest to Donald RTraser . Current new items should be sent to Everett Young. Motive Power or rollingmock items should go to Carl Shaver. Modeling contributions to Ted Luce.

Book issues of the Magzine available ($2.50 per Copy), white supplies last bat. A lintof available issues eon he obtained by sending a stamped, self-addrssress envelope toStuart Hallett. This publication is also available in microfilm . For further information,write to University Microfilms International ; 300 North Zeeb Road; Ann Arbor, Michi-gan 48106.Copyright 1988 by the Chesapeake & Ohio Historical Society, Inc . No portion of thispublication may be reproduced without the written eon.ent of the editor or Presidentof the Society . All C&O Service marks are used with the permeation of CSX Corporation .The Chesapeake & Ohio Historical Magazine (ISSN Number 0886'6287) is the monthlypublication of the Chesapeake& Ohio Historical Society, Inc . Printed and bound by theMcClain Printing Company, 212 Main Street, Parsons, West Virginia 26287 .PAYMENT OF DUES, MOVING ,OR CHANGE OF ADDRESS : Please notify the mem-benhip officer the above address at least 30 days before any change . Use USPS Form3576 .ANNUAL MEMBERSHIP DUES :

Regular membership $16.00Sustaining membership $32.00

THE CHESAPEAKE & 0' 110 HISTORICAL SOCIETY, INC .P.O . Box 146Alderson, West Virginia 24910

A non - profit corporation, incorporated under the laws of the State of West Virginia anddedicated to the promotion of the study and better understanding of the Chesapeake& Ohio Railway Company, its predecessors, and it . successors .BOARD OF Directors :

THOMAS:.

PresidentP . O . Box 47114Washington, D.C. 20050WILLIAM R. SPARKMON vice-presidentPHILIP A. SHUSTER

Secretary-treasurerE. STERLING HANGER, JR .ATTILA ZOMBORCHARLES WILLIAM FORDRI M AI ' v . GIFFORD

OTHER VOLUNTEER OPERATING OFFICERS:MRS. LEAH KEAN

Membership OM.. .P. o. B00 79Clifton Forge, Virginia 24422ATTILA ZOMBOR

Sale . Manager12973 WesleySouthgate, Michigan 48195STUART E. HALLETT, JR. Magazine Back Issues120 Stonewall PlaceNewport New., Virginia 23606WILLIAM G. MCCLURE, III Corporate CounselARTHUR B . MILLION

Pere Marquette Historian1205 Oak- Ave.Grand Haven, MI 49417EDWARD H.MILLERHocking Valley Historian389 Pocono Rd.Worthington, Ohio 43085

This month on the C&O

100 Years AgoROBERT L. HARVEY

AS REPORTED IN THE PAGES OF THE "RAILROAD GAZETTE"-December, 1666

Maysville & Big Sandy . In off-again, on-again fashion, thisrailroad issued a barrage of statements in late 1888 :

Nov. 30-- " . . .the road will be opened for freight andpassenger traffic over its entire length Dec .3 ."

Dec . 7-- "Although this Kentucky road is now aboutcompleted, President Ingalls has decided thatit shall not be opened until March 1 . . . Theroad will be known as the Maysville Divisionof the Chesapeake & Ohio ."

Dec . 28-- "It is announced that this new Ohio River(note name change) Division of the Chesapeake& Ohio will be formally opened from Covingtonto Ashland, Ky ., Dec . 24, for freight andpassenger service ."

Chesapeake & Ohio . A news item: "William Garstang, born inEngland in 1851, was superintendent of motive power onthe C&O from 1888 to 1893 . He had been with fiverailroads prior to his C&O engagement, and he left togo with the Big Four (CCC&StL) . Evidently a goodpractical engineer, Garstang developed a cast iron carwheel of unique design which, he claimed, minimizedcracking caused by excessive heating. In the day ofcast iron wheels and imprecise braking, whether by handor by air, the broken car wheel was a major source oftrain accidents . A paper which Garstang wrote abouthis wheel design was read to a meeting of the New YorkRailroad Club. I quote one paragraph from the paperwhich gives an idea of operating practices betweenClifton Forge and Hinton :

!.r

This month

We continue a December tradition offeaturing some photos of trains andsnow . While the photos were not neces-sarily taken at Christmastime, we hopethey will evoke pleasant memories ofChristmases past or anticipation ofthose yet to come . FRONT COVER :Amtrak's Cardinal is eastbound atKanawha City, West Virginia on March 7,1986 .

LCL Page 2

A Christmas Album 4

Motive Power, etc 10

Basement Subdivision12

"It is a well-known fact that a wheel that wouldbe satisfactory in every respect, under cars of 60,000lbs . capacity on level roads, would not give satis-faction, nor can it be used with safety on mountainousroads with long steep grades that require very heavyapplication of the brakes for a long time. Forexample, on the Chesapeake & Ohio Railway there aregrades 76 ft . per mile for 14 miles and 80 ft. per milefor 9 miles . As heavy freight trains are not allowedto make more than a mile in five minutes on thesegrades, it will be readily seen that the brakes arerequired to be set for from one to one and one-halfhours . I have seen brake shoes almost completely wornout from one trip over the road, caused by having60,000 lb . cars on the rear of a train of lighter cars .As the tendency to crack is one of the worst evils, itis evident that there must be some allowance made forthis contraction and expansion ."

A note in the locomotive-building column : "TheSchenectady Locomotive Works has delivered to theChesapeake & Ohio road four locomotives for use on theCincinnati (yet another name!) Division . The enginesweigh 64 tons and have a 19"x24" cylinder ."

Author Jay Potter has sent the following corrections tohis Scrap Lines article which appeared in our Septemberissue :

p .4, photo . The SD-18s were the first class ofEMD second-generation diesels to be completely with-drawn from service .

p.5, last sentence . All seven SD-18s, including7317, had been collected at Huntington .

p .5, bottom photo .

Manifest freight 302 waseastbound .

p .7, bottom photo .

The only Chessie first-gene-ration SDs were five B&O SD-7s and ten B&O SD-9s .

Here are Dale Earnest's corrections to our June issuerhich were promised several months ago :

p.5, top photo . The first turntable at Thurmondfit in the 50-foot pit seen on the left in this photo .A 70 foot table was later built in another location andthe freight station was built where the smaller one hadbeen located .

p .8, line 6 .

C. C . Fitzgerald should be D . D .Fitzgerald .

p .10, left photo . (Shays were introduced to theKeeney's Creek Line in 1903 and to the Minden line in1906 and stayed until the early 1920s .)

p .10, right photo. 4 .6% grade should be 4 .16% .

p .17, caption . "Third to the right in the linenearest the camera is a Shay, which was used on theRend division . The C&0 Shays were among the heaviestShays ever built ." Comment--The Keeney's Creek Shaynever ran out of Thurmond . It was kept at Keeney'sCreek .

p .18, line 11 should read, "He had been workingthere only a short time ."

p.20, omit from line 47 "This turntable" through"turned" on line 50 . Already appears on page 5 .

p.23, in bibliography--

Charles

and DorothyWells, Thurmond, West Virginia .

Reviews"Steam Locomotives of the Chesapeake & Ohio," produced byJMJ Productions, P .O. Box 4449, Hollywood, Florida 33083 .51 minutes, 95% black and white . $39 .00 postage paid .

The first video devoted exclusively to C&O steam (witha small exception) is essential to serious C&0 historiansand modelers of the steam era, and also to steam buffs ingeneral .

Due in large part to the excellent cinematography ofAugust Thieme, this production is taken out of the class ofordinary steam videos . Not only are several classes oflocomotives documented thoroughly, but considerable atten-tion was also given to train consists and rolling stock, aswell as line side structures and scenery. Backgrounds werechosen as well for the original 16 mm photography as wouldhave been for present day still photography . Quite commen-dable considering state of art during the time frame inquestion, 1949 to 1953 .

Most of the action featured is in the Richmond,Virginia area . Fine examples of high speed operation, bothfreight and passenger, are featured on the Peninsula Sub-division . Extensive coverage is also given to freightoperations on the James River line . The Piedmont Subdivi-sion is given adequate coverage and the Mountain Subdivisionis also covered in some detail . One of the more charmingaspects of this production is the considerable footagedevoted to mixed train operation of the Dillwyn Branch. Theonly scenes outside the east central Virginia area aredevoted to H-4 class locomotives on NF&G mine shifters, someof which are in color .

Format is established by locomotive classification .Classes covered include C-15, C-16, G-7, H-4, K-2, K-3, K-3a, K-4, F-16, F-18, L-1, L-2, J-2, J-3, and J-3a with abrief glimpse of H-8 1629 in Fulton Yard .

The only negative aspect of this video has to do withsound dubbing and narration, a common flaw with many contem-porary tapes . More specifically, dubbed whistle sounds are

inaccurate as remembered by this reviewer . Exhaust soundsand background noises are somewhat overdone . Furthermore,the narrator is unfamiliar with his material and quotes someerroneous facts and mispronounces "Kanawha," another commonoccurrence . Even though these defects are mentioned incandor, they do not detract significantly from the overallquality .

W. Wayne Carman

Union Station :A Decorative History of Washington's GrandTerminal,Carol M. Highsmith and Ted Landphair, 198T,Chelsea Publishing, Washington, D .C ., 95 pages, softbound,$19 .95 .

"Make no little plans," said architect Daniel H .Burnham. "They have no magic to stir men's blood ." When hecame onto the scene in turn-of-the-century Washington, D .C .the Mall had been cluttered with the terminals of thePennsylvania and B&O railroads and their attendant dirtysmoke, grade crossings, and noisy engines . Congressmen wereoften forced to pause in mid-oration to await the passage ofa train . The area north of the Capitol was a low lying areasurrounded by an unsavory neighborhood .

Burnham's philosophy restored the sweeping southernvistas, elevated the northlands, and created a gateway--Union Station, opened in 1907, that would be called the"Crossroads of the World"--to the capital of a nation emer-ging as a leading world power . It's 750 foot long concoursewas the world's largest room ; there were 33 platform tracksand 60 miles of track in the station and yards ; otherfacilities included a room for the exclusive use of thePresident, a reading room, bowling alley, billiard parlor,and sleeping quarters, in addition to the restaurant andlunch counter, news and shoeshine stands, and railroadoffices . By 1928 301 trains a day, one every 5 minutes,arrived or departed, and during World War II an estimated100,000 passengers passed through the station in a 24 hourperiod .

The heyday of the great station is well documented byHighsmith and Landphair in a wide-ranging collection ofhistoric photographs showing the palatial appointments, thecrowds, world leaders, and ordinary workers . More recentphotos show the sad days when some ill-begotten idea turnedthe station into the National Visitors' Center, strangelylacking visitors, while passengers were routed through, andlater around, the spacious temple to a diminutive replace-ment out back . Finally, there is the glorious color pho-tography of Ms . Highsmith which chronicles the station'srebirth and 1988 reopening as Amtrak's southern terminus tothe Northeast Corridor .

The text of this book is not technical, it is readableand filled with remembrances of workers and passengers whogive an idea of what the station's operations and facilitieswere like over the years . A chapter is devoted to thealmost theatrical runaway of the Federal Express in 1953,obliterating the stationmaster's office and falling into thebasement below the concourse, but the most detailed treat-ments of the disastrous Visitor Center plan as the writersexamine the bureaucratic buck-passing from one involvedparty to another .

I have only two regrets about this publication : First,that is was so enjoyable I wish there were more . Second,its publication just before the reopening of the station(September, 1988) precluded coverage of that event . Hatsoff to Highsmith and Land phair!

Currently available from Chelsea Publishing, Inc ., 1300G Street, NW, Washington, DC 20005 . We will keep you in-formed if this item becomes available from C&OHS Sales .

DRT

3

"Everywhere, everywhere, Christmastonight," wrote priest and poet,Phillips Brooks . "Christmas inlands of the fir tree and pine,Christmas in lands of the palm treeand vine ." Snow has fallen from oneend of the C&0 to the other, inGilmore Mills, Virginia on the JamesRiver Subdivision (COHS 5890 YN) andin Bay City, Michigan on LakeHuron's Saginaw Bay . The GrandTrunk and Michigan Central alsocalled at this union station, makingit a busy place (CSPR 4091 YN) . Allacross the C&0 passenger train crewswill wear a sprig of greenery ontheir uniforms as a reminder of theholiday season .

A Christmas Album

4

These two wintery scenes show theengine terminal area of theWine frede Railroad at Wine fredeJunction, West Virginia and acaboose on a Wine frede train (notethe backup light) . The Wine fredewas one of the short lines thatearly connected with the C&O,delivering coal for transport alongits main line from mines in theKanawha field . In later years, mostof its coal was shipped by barge onthe Kanawha River, and in the lastfew years the operation closed downentirely as the mines closed . Itsfleet of hoppers was largely hand-me-downs from the C&O as were itslocomotives . Photos by LarryFelleure . (COHS 70440 and 70444 BP)

6

Holiday crowds have yet to swell itsconsist beyond three cars as ex-Hocking Valley F-13 No . 91 backs toits train outside the olddepot /hotel at Logan, Ohio in 1945(COHS 2798) . It looks as thoughsome passengers will be delayed as aPere Marquette train bound forChicago stops at Grandville,Michigan, just outside Grand Rapidsto have a hot box repaired on theparlor car, c. 1910 . All daytimeGrand Rapids to Chicago passengertrains carried parlor cars (SouthShore Limited), but the ChicagoLimited and Western Limited carrieddining cars as well . In those days,there were as many as six trains aday each way between these twopoints . All had coaches and the twonight trains carried sleeping cars .(COHS 5415, Art Million collection) .

No matter what the season, black diamonds are still being hauled from the depths of the mines, occasionally mixing with othercommodities en route . Caboose 3301 trailed an eastbound movement at MacDougle, West Virginia in February, 1971 . Thomas W .

Dixon photo . RF&P 4-8-4 No . 622, the Carter Braxton, was retired on its home road in 1954, but was in service on the C&0 thefollowing year when it was photographed passing Big Sandy Junction westbound . CSPR 3708 BN .

8

Mother Nature has created a winterwonderland of icy crystals in arecord 19 .5 inch snow at St. Albans,West Virginia in April, 1987 . C30-77055 and GP-40s 6839 and 6668 exitthe tunnel with empties bound forDanville . Finally, a business carbrings up the markers of theCardinal eastbound at Charleston,West Virginia . Happy Holidays!Photos by Jay Potter .

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Motive Power News

CSXT : Tim Hensley (both photographs)

CSXT 1010 has been attached to GP38-2 2518, and isposed outside the shops of Precision National Corpo-ration, in Mount Vernon, Illinois . Only the end ofthe slug away from the mother unit has a headlight andnumber boards ; both ends have an emergency brake valve(it can be seen obscuring the "S" on this end ; thevalve is painted red) . The 1010 and 2518 have spentmost of their time in Baltimore .

CSXT 1010, the first of twenty yard slugs to be re-built from Chessie GP9s, is about to be attached toits "mother" unit-in the foreground is the end thatwill be adjacent to the mother locomotive . We stillneed information on the former numbers of units re-built into slugs (frame numbers- a four-digit ordernumber followed by a sequence number-would help!) .This slug, judging from the walkway skirting, was re-built from a 1957 C&O GP9 (series 6209 -6263) .

There is no further word about the tenSD60s and forty Dash 8-40Cs ordered by CSXTfor delivery in next year's second quarter .As soon as we find out more details (roadnumbers, special options, etc .) we'll passthem on .

As of November 9, 1988, all but two ofthe twenty new yard slugs had been placedin service on CSX rails . Units 1010-1027,with "mother" units in series 2500 -2519(GP38-2s) have dispersed over the entiresystem .

Among yards in former C&0 country toemploy the new slugs are Barr Yard (Chi-cago), Russell, Clifton Forge, Richmond,and Walbridge. Older slugs are at Russell,Walbridge, Huntington, Columbus, and PeachCreek .

Meanwhile, production is about to be-gin on the eighty CSXT road slugs . Thefirst one, CSXT 2200, was completed out ofsequence so it could be displayed at theRailway Supply Association exhibit in Chi-cago in September . As of November 9, it

was in Nashville, Tennessee .The "mother" units for the eighty road

slugs (CSXT 2200-2279) will be GP40-2s .According to the August issue of CTC BoardMagazine (received in early November), theunits will be renumbered into the 6400 se-ries . Included are the following :

"Mother" No .

Former CSXT

Originally6400 -6424 6161-6185 C&O 4262-42866425 -6435 6186-6196 B&O 4287-42976436 -6460 6320-6344 B&O 4422-44466462 -6483

6366-6387

SBD 6366-6387

We don't know why 83 (84?) GP40-2s arebeing converted, when the road slug programhas called for only 80 units . These unitsare apparently permanently attached toeach other, so there should be no need for"spares ."

VMV Enterprises, of Paducah, Kentucky,is handling the conversion work needed onthe mother units. We don't know what thisconversion entails on yard units, beyondadded electrical connections ; on the roadunits it would have to include provisions

for automatic equalization of fuel betweenmother and slug (according to CSX News,this will operate whenever the mother unithas 200 gallons of fuel less than theslug) .

In our October issue, we mentioned theapparent omission of B&O GP40-2 4447, theArch Mc Elvaney, when all the other Chessieunits had been renumbered into the CSXTnumbering system . This apparently wasdone by design, as the unit is identifiedas CSXT 4447 . According to CTC Board, itis to retain its Chessie paint schemeindefinitely .

We noticed, however, that number 6461is open in the renumbering of GP40-2s tobe used with the road slugs (see precedingarticle) . Based on the renumbering of theunits immediately below this slot, thatvacancy is reserved for CSXT 4447 . It mayalready be the 84th unit involved in thisprogram (wouldn't it be something if itsslug came out in Chessie paint!)

At Hartsville, South Carolina, onAugust 7, four of the South CarolinaCentral's ex-C&O units were found .At left is GP9 6187, and to the farright is GP9 5905 . They were amongsix GP9s (three ex-B&O and threeex-C&O) acquired for the opening ofthe line last December . This pastMarch, SCRF (don't ask us how thesereporting marks are derived fromSouth Carolina Central!) obtainedex-C&O SD18s 7307 and 7309 ; theseare in the foreground . All C&O andChessie markings have been paintedover on these units, with "SCRF"initials stenciled on the sides .

10

The CSX paint scheme has spread to two unlikely units(both photographed at Huntington on October 14) : NW29575 (ex-C&O 5075) and battery-powered "shop goat"18742

The Can Department

Alauight Jones (both photographs)

pacity and the car's empty weight have been eliminatedfrom standard lettering practices . Above the truck atthe right is a stencil reading "FRA/AAR Test Wheels ."(The wheels have an experimental profile .) Two thou-sand of these cars (they are gondolas, despite theirappearance, since they lack hopper doors) are beingbuilt by the Bethlehem Steel Corporation at Johnstown,Pennsylvania . CSXT numbers are 380100 -382099 .

A string of new CSXT coal gondolas departs Cumberlandfor points west on October 29, 1988 . With a capacityof 3560 cubic feet, these cars hold slightly more thanthe Chessie's most modern hoppers (3433 cubic feet, inthe same length) . The cars are black, with yellowlettering and a yellow band on the "tubs" below thesides . The car's lettering now shows only the loadlimit below the number-the lines showing nominal ca-

According to the August issue of CTC

Board Magazine, CSX has identified a con-tinuing need for about 400 cabooses . Themagazine reports that from 450 to 500 ofthe best cabooses on the system will beretained, refurbished, and repainted intothe CSXT paint scheme . This quantity isless than the C&0 had rostered by itselfin recent years .

Frank Caldwell, of Lyons, Illinois, supplied uswith this photograph of his father, J . W . "Bill"Caldwell (at left) and his crew, at Elk Run Junc-tion, West Virginia . The Shay locomotive has fourtrucks, and the C&O caboose has four wheels . Thenumber on the caboose appears to be 90295, which,according to the 1916 ICC valuation reports, wasbuilt by the Huntington Shops in 1902 . A few subtledifferences can be seen between this cab and the1905 AC&F-built four-wheel caboose pictured in ourApril issue (page 21) . The 1931 date supplied withthis photograph is probably a few years late ; ourrecords show that all 15 of the C&O's four-truckShays were scrapped in the summer of 1923 .

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Ted Luce

3105 N. 400 West St .

West Lafayette, IN 47906

supports underneath. The larger structure was built from card-board sides and Campbell metal siding .

The small office building was constructed with stripwood,painted, weathered and detailed . There are working lights bothinside and out, on all buildings .

After each building was in place, lots of details were putin place to fill the gaps : electric lines, poles, fences, weedsand rocks, coal dust, people, cars, junk and trees . They wereall fun to add . The project was started in January of 1982 andfinished in November of that year .

Greigs' other four modules will be featured in upcomingissues . Photos by Ted Luce .

Model displays at the convention in Charleston featuredsome marvelous modules by Greig Goodall of Huntington . Therewere five of them, and this month we'll take a look at one . Itrepresents the kind of artistic skill characteristic of Greig'smodels (Thurmond Station, February 1984 Newsletter) . Here ishow Greig described the module :

Paint Creek, on the C&O, has had many coal tipples throughthe years . Approximately two miles above Mahan (visible fromthe West Virginia Turnpike) was a tipple that inspired thismodel. It is now completely gone . Also, past C&OHS Newsletterphotos were helpful . After making scale plans, each buildingwas built one at a time . The one on the hill, on the rightside, is a Muir Models "Allegheny Coal Tipple" with concrete

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Basement Subdivision

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