Baltimore and Ohio Railroad

“ During the years which followed England was covered with a network of railroads.
America with its great distances to traverse, was not slow to adopt the railroad. Only three years after Stephenson’s passenger railway was opened, the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad was begun. The first cars were only stage-coaches made to run on rails and the locomotive was a crude affair,—but it was a vast improvement on former methods of travel. ”

“ The Baltimore & Ohio railroad was built to protect and further the commercial interests of the city of Baltimore; the Cincinnati Southern railway is still owned by the city of Cincinnati, which built the line in the ’seventies for commercial protection against Louisville, Ky. From a commercial point of view such ventures are differentiated from railway projects built for general commercial reasons because they do not depend on their own credit. The government, national or local, furnishes the borrowing power, and makes the best bargain it can with the men it designates to operate the line. ”

“ In New England, and also in New York—where railroads have, in many cases, been deprived of the privilege of carrying freight—judiciously located roads have invariably paid well. Their success has not been caused by the exercise of any peculiar skill or economy in their management, as generally supposed, for, in this respect, though they stand deservedly high, there is none that conduct their business, under all circumstances, with as much economy as the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, or some other southern companies. ”

“ For the first real railroad system in America—the Baltimore & Ohio—was planned by the citizens of the old town—ambitious dreamers each of them—as an offset to those rival cities to the north, Philadelphia and New York, who were creating canals to develop their commerce—at the expense of the commerce of Baltimore. ”

“ It would be pathetic, nay tragic, to remove an American railroad name like the Pennsylvania or the Northwestern, to try to paint out the red cars of the one line and the yellow ones of the other. New York Central is too good a name to be scrapped. The same is true of Baltimore and Ohio. How can we prate of morale and then dare to take from under it the things that are its chief support? After all does sentiment count for nothing? And tradition? Have we not possibly become a little too materialistic a nation? ”

“ All the railroad projects already related were timid projects in the beginning, with hardly a thought of ultimate greatness. Yet there were men, even in the earliest days of railroading, whose minds winged to great enterprises, whose dreams were empire-wide. Of such men was the Baltimore & Ohio born. ”

“ Because the Baltimore & Ohio was the main east-west link available to the Government for the movement of its soldiers, the B & O carried much military freight and many troops during the Civil War years. At the start of the war the railroad operated almost normally, running through areas held by both armies. But, as the battles progressed, there were frequent interruptions to rail service and repeated damage to B & O tracks and equipment. ”

“ It is regrettable that, as Baltimore began to break this fresh track, she should have had political as well as physical and mechanical obstacles to overcome. The conquest of the natural 148 difficulties alone required superhuman effort and endurance. But Baltimore had also to fight a miserable internecine warfare in her own State, for Maryland immediately subscribed half a million to the canal as well as to the newly formed Baltimore and Ohio Railroad. ”

“ In the State of New York, whose population is the most adventurous and the most successful in their speculations, there are at present only four or five short railroads, but if the sixth part of those which are projected and authorized by the Legislature, are executed, New York will not be behind Pennsylvania in this respect. The merchants of Baltimore, which at the time of the Declaration of Independence contained 6,000 inhabitants, and which now numbers 100,000, have taken it into their heads to make a railroad between their city and the Ohio, a distance of above 300 miles. ”

“ Had the train proceeded fifty yards further, the car we were in must have been torn to pieces, and it would have been indeed a lucky passenger who would have escaped death or severe injury.
There was one car in the rear of us, and as the wrecked car could not be moved, the two were left standing, and all the passengers crowded into the three or four cars in our front. Thus we proceeded to Grafton, where other cars were added.
The Baltimore and Ohio Railroad is very well conducted, and accidents on it are not of frequent occurrence. ”

“ Smiling fortune could hardly have fashioned a situation more favorable to the plans of the Confederates, covetous of northern locomotives, for right between the hostile lines, and yet generally within the grasp of the southern forces, ran the Baltimore and Ohio railroad, a prosperous trunk line of standard gauge, extending from Baltimore to St. ”

“ So when, by the improvements and discoveries of mechanical science, railroads came to be built and furnished with all the apparatus of rapid and all-absorbing transportation, no one imagined that the State, if itself owner of the work, might not exact any amount whatever of toll or fare or freight, or authorize its citizens or corporations, if owners, to do the same. Had the State built the road in question it might, to this day, unchallenged and unchallengeable, have charged two dollars and fifty cents for carrying a passenger between Baltimore and Washington. ”

“ We left one cold day in November, via Harrisburg, traveling all night in a box-car attached to a freight train. We were delayed all the next day in Baltimore, putting in the time standing around in the cold, miserable streets, under guard, awaiting our transportation over the slow Baltimore & Ohio to Washington. The second night we reached Washington, and slept on the floor of the barn-like affair they called the Soldiers' Retreat, then located down by the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad Depot. A great many soldiers will remember that shanty. ”

“ Intimates of James J. Hill, the transportation giant of the northwest, say that the ambition of his life is to [632] encircle the world with a system of railroads and steamships, all of which shall be under his guiding hand. He has nearly attained it. He owns the Great Northern railway, which stretches from Seattle, Washington, to St. Paul and Duluth, Minnesota. He is proprietor of the line of steamers which ply between Duluth and Buffalo. He is largely interested in the Baltimore & Ohio railroad, which covers the territory between Chicago, Philadelphia and New York. ”

“ The Pennsylvania Company moved nearly twice as many cars for the Baltimore & Ohio road as the Baltimore & Ohio did for it. The government therefore contends with much force that such reciprocal switching arrangements ought not to justify giving cars shipped over the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad a preference denied the cars shipped over the lines of the Rochester road, which cars enter New Castle on the same track and reach the same junction points. ”

“ This prosperity has but reflected the condition of the country at large, but the Baltimore & Ohio has taken advantage of it in far-sighted fashion. No less than $17,000,000 have been spent from earnings for additions and improvements between June 30, 1899, and June 30, 1907, not to mention maintenance of way expenditures which have ranged from about $1500 to over $2500 per mile of road operated. Besides the provision made by the reorganization plan, $15,000,000 convertible debentures were issued under date of March 1, 1901, for new construction and improvements. ”