The Baltimore and Ohio Railroad in West Virginia [Images of Rail Series] »

Author Bob Withers is a retired reporter and copy editor for the Herald-Dispatch in Huntington, West Virginia, and a bi-vocational Baptist pastor. He and his wife, Sue Ann, have three daughters and three grandchildren. He is the author of two previous books--The President Travels by Train (TLC Publishing, 1996 and 2004) and Trackside around West Virginia, 1963-1968 (Morning Sun Books, 2006)--and several magazine articles on railroading.

In 1827, a group of Baltimore capitalists feared their city would be left out of the lucrative East Coast-to-Midwest trade that other eastern cities were developing; thus, the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad was chartered. Political pressure kept the B&O out of Pennsylvania at first, and so track crews headed for what is now West Virginia, building mountainous routes with torturous grades to Wheeling and Parkersburg. Eventually the B&O financed and acquired a spiderweb of branch lines that covered much of the northern and central parts of the Mountain State. This book takes a close look at the line's locomotives, passenger and freight trains, structures, and, most importantly, its people who endeared their company to generations of travelers, shippers, and small Appalachian communities.