Baltimore & Ohio Railroad HO Scale Models

The Baltimore and Ohio Railroad holds the distinction of being the oldest railroad in the United States and the first steam-operated common carrier in the country. Its origins trace to 1827, when a group of roughly twenty-five Baltimore merchants and bankers, alarmed by the commercial advantages that the Erie Canal had granted New York City over their own port, organized to build a rail connection between Baltimore and the Ohio River. Maryland and Virginia both chartered the Baltimore and Ohio Rail Road Company in February and March of 1827, respectively, and ground was broken on July 4, 1828. The first segment of the line, running approximately thirteen miles between Baltimore and Ellicott's Mills in Maryland, opened on May 24, 1830, initially using horse-drawn cars before transitioning to steam power in 1831. The railroad pushed steadily westward over the following two decades, reaching Cumberland, Maryland, in 1842 and arriving at Wheeling on the Ohio River in 1853, finally fulfilling its founders' original ambition of connecting the Atlantic seaboard to the interior of the continent. Throughout the nineteenth century the B&O expanded its network considerably, absorbing feeder lines in Virginia and West Virginia and extending service into Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois. The railroad suffered severe physical damage during the Civil War, as its main line passed through contested territory, but its ability to move Union troops and supplies proved strategically vital to the Northern war effort. In the postwar decades the B&O established itself as a major trunk railroad serving Chicago, St. Louis, and numerous intermediate points, competing directly with the Pennsylvania Railroad and the New York Central for Midwestern traffic. The railroad also developed a reputation for its passenger services, operating named trains such as the Capitol Limited between Chicago and Washington, D.C., a route that passed through Pittsburgh, Cumberland, and the scenic Potomac River valley. By the mid-twentieth century the B&O faced the financial pressures that challenged most American railroads of the era. In 1962 the Chesapeake and Ohio Railway acquired a controlling interest in the B&O, though the two roads continued to function as separate operating entities. The Chessie System holding company was created in 1973 to oversee both the C&O and the B&O, along with the Western Maryland Railway. The B&O ended its long-distance passenger operations in 1971 when Amtrak assumed intercity rail service, though it retained limited commuter operations in the Washington and Pittsburgh areas for some years afterward. By 1987 the B&O was formally merged into the Chesapeake and Ohio Railway, which was itself by that point a subsidiary of CSX Transportation, the large railroad conglomerate formed through the 1980 combination of the Chessie System and Seaboard Coast Line Industries. The legacy of the Baltimore and Ohio is substantial in American railroad history. It pioneered early locomotive technology, constructed notable engineering works including tunnels and viaducts that remained in service for generations, and operated some of the most celebrated passenger trains in the East. Its main line corridor through the Potomac and Patapsco river valleys continues to carry freight under CSX Transportation, and the original station at Ellicott City, one of the oldest surviving railroad stations in the United States, remains a preserved landmark. The railroad's cultural footprint extends even to popular culture, as the B&O was one of the four railroads included in the original American edition of the board game Monopoly, introduced in 1935, ensuring that its name remained familiar to millions of Americans long after the reporting mark BO disappeared from active service.