The Appalachian and Ohio Railroad is a

class III railroad In the United States, railroad carriers are designated as Class I, II, or III, according to annual revenue criteria originally set by the Surface Transportation Board in 1992. With annual adjustments for inflation, the 2019 thresholds were US$5 ...

operating in

West Virginia West Virginia is a state in the Appalachian, Mid-Atlantic and Southeastern regions of the United States.The Census Bureau and the Association of American Geographers classify West Virginia as part of the Southern United States while the Bur ...

. Originally the Cowen and Pickens Subdivisions of the

Baltimore & Ohio Railroad The Baltimore and Ohio Railroad was the first common carrier railroad and the oldest railroad in the United States, with its first section opening in 1830. Merchants from Baltimore, which had benefited to some extent from the construction of ...

, the railroad was a part of

CSX CSX Transportation , known colloquially as simply CSX, is a Class I freight railroad operating in the Eastern United States and the Canadian provinces of Ontario and Quebec. The railroad operates approximately 21,000 route miles () of track. ...

until it was leased to

Watco Watco Companies, L.L.C. (Watco) is a transportation company based in Pittsburg, Kansas, formed in 1983 by Charles R. Webb. Watco was composed of four divisions: transportation, mechanical, terminal and port services, and compliance. Watco is th ...

, which began operating the railroad on March 25, 2005. Watco only held the line for a short time before turning the lease from CSX over to Four Rivers Transportation, now P&L Transportation, on May 15, 2006.A & O Railroad
Appalachian and Ohio Railroad, 2006. Accessed 2007-07-22. The railroad operates 158 miles of track between Grafton and Cowen. It has one active branch, a portion of the Pickens Subdivision that connects

Alexander Alexander is a male given name. The most prominent bearer of the name is Alexander the Great, the king of the Ancient Greek kingdom of Macedonia who created one of the largest empires in ancient history. Variants listed here are Aleksandar, Al ...

to the main line at

Hampton Hampton may refer to: Places Australia *Hampton bioregion, an IBRA biogeographic region in Western Australia *Hampton, New South Wales *Hampton, Queensland, a town in the Toowoomba Region * Hampton, Victoria Canada * Hampton, New Brunswick *Ha ...

.System map
, Appalachian and Ohio Railroad, 2006. The Century branch has been inactive for several years. Accessed 2007-07-22. The A&O's main customers are coal mines, although it carries smaller amounts of chemicals and wood. Among the six coal mines it serves is the Sago Mine, site of the

Sago Mine disaster The Sago Mine disaster was a coal mine explosion on January 2, 2006, at the Sago Mine in Sago, West Virginia, United States, near the Upshur County seat of Buckhannon. The blast and collapse trapped 13 miners for nearly two days; only one su ...

in 2006. It connects with three other railroads: *

, at Grafton * Beech Mountain Railroad (BEEM), at Alexander *

West Virginia Central Railroad The Durbin and Greenbrier Valley Railroad is a heritage and freight railroad in the U.S. states of Virginia and West Virginia. It operates the West Virginia State Rail Authority-owned Durbin Railroad and West Virginia Central Railroad , as well ...

(WVC), at Tygart All of these railroads are currently active, including the BEEM regularly loading coal trains since 2008 and the WVC regularly bringing freight trains to the interchange at Tygart.

Locomotive Roster

The A&O railroad uses CSX locomotives to move the empty and loaded

cars A car or automobile is a motor vehicle with wheels. Most definitions of ''cars'' say that they run primarily on roads, seat one to eight people, have four wheels, and mainly transport people instead of goods. The year 1886 is regarded as t ...

coal trains to and from customers. They had lease four CEFX

EMD SD90MAC The EMD SD90MAC is a model of C-C diesel-electric locomotive produced by General Motors Electro-Motive Division. It is, with the SD80MAC, one of the largest single-engined locomotives produced by EMD, surpassed only by the dual-engined DDA ...

s (#s 125, 130, 133-134) for helper services in the Burnsville area, but have since been returned to CEFX. Two GP40-3s (#s2105, 2113), two road slugs (#s 2102, 2114) six GMTX

EMD GP38-2 The EMD GP38-2 is an American four-axle diesel-electric locomotive built by General Motors, Electro-Motive Division. Part of the EMD Dash 2 line, the GP38-2 was an upgraded version of the earlier GP38. Power is provided by an EMD 645E 16-cylin ...

s (#s 2631, 2634, 2638, 2662, 2665 and 2670), for various switching and local tasks. All fourteen

EMD SD50 The EMD SD50 is a diesel-electric locomotive built by General Motors Electro-Motive Division. It was introduced in May 1981 as part of EMD's "50 Series"; production ceased in January 1986. The SD50 was a transitional model between EMD's Dash ...

s (#5101-5102, 5104, 5106-5110, 5114-5119) went to other Watco operations.Appalachian and Ohio Railroad Locomotives, http://www.thedieselshop.us/App&Ohio.HTML Accessed 2007-12-09.

References

External links

Railroad websiteLocomotive roster
{{DEFAULTSORT:Appalachian Ohio Railroad West Virginia railroads 2005 establishments in West Virginia Watco Spin-offs of CSX Transportation