The Marietta Subdivision is a

railroad Rail transport (also known as train transport) is a means of transport that transfers passengers and goods on wheeled vehicles running on rails, which are incorporated in tracks. In contrast to road transport, where the vehicles run on a pre ...

line owned by

CSX Transportation 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. ...

and operated by Belpre Industrial Parkersburg Railroad in the U.S. states of

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 ...

and

Ohio Ohio () is a state in the Midwestern region of the United States. Of the fifty U.S. states, it is the 34th-largest by area, and with a population of nearly 11.8 million, is the seventh-most populous and tenth-most densely populated. The sta ...

. The line runs from

Parkersburg, West Virginia Parkersburg is a city in and the county seat of Wood County, West Virginia, Wood County, West Virginia. Located at the confluence of the Ohio River, Ohio and Little Kanawha River, Little Kanawha rivers, it is the state's fourth-largest city and ...

, west to

Belpre, Ohio Belpre (historically spelled Belpré; pronounced ) is a city in Washington County, Ohio, United States, along the Ohio River near Parkersburg, West Virginia. Its name derives from "Belle Prairie" (French for "beautiful meadow"), the name given ...

, and north via

Marietta Marietta may refer to: Places in the United States *Marietta, Jacksonville, Florida *Marietta, Georgia, the largest US city named Marietta *Marietta, Illinois *Marietta, Indiana *Marietta, Kansas *Marietta, Minnesota *Marietta, Mississippi *Mar ...

Relief Relief is a sculptural method in which the sculpted pieces are bonded to a solid background of the same material. The term ''relief'' is from the Latin verb ''relevo'', to raise. To create a sculpture in relief is to give the impression that the ...

(near

Beverly, Ohio Beverly is a village in Washington County, Ohio, United States. It is part of the Parkersburg- Marietta-Vienna, WV-OH Metropolitan Statistical Area. The population was 1,313 at the 2010 census. History Beverly was established by the Ohio Com ...

) along a former

Baltimore and Ohio Rail Road 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 ...

line. Its south end is at a connection to the

Ohio River Subdivision The Ohio River Subdivision is a specific portion of a railroad system that runs along the Ohio River, owned and operated by CSX Transportation in the U.S. state of West Virginia. The line runs from Wheeling southwesterly along the east (l ...

; the line crosses the

Ohio River The Ohio River is a long river in the United States. It is located at the boundary of the Midwestern and Southern United States, flowing southwesterly from western Pennsylvania to its mouth on the Mississippi River at the southern tip of Illino ...

on the Parkersburg Bridge between Parkersburg and Belpre.

History

The short piece of the Marietta Subdivision from Moore Junction northeast to Harmar (part of Marietta) opened in 1857 as part of the

Marietta and Cincinnati Railroad The Marietta and Cincinnati (M&C) was one of five important east-west railroads of southern Ohio; it was later absorbed by the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad (B&O). Its original route ran from Marietta through Vincent, Athens, Hamden, Chillicothe, ...

. The Union Railroad, from Moore Junction south to Belpre, opened in 1860. The Parkersburg Bridge opened in 1871, connecting Belpre to the B&O's Parkersburg Branch. , January 2005 Edition In the 1880s or 1890s, the Zanesville and Ohio River Railway built from Harmar northwest past the current end of the line towards

Zanesville Zanesville is a city in and the county seat of Muskingum County, Ohio, Muskingum County, Ohio, United States. It is located east of Columbus, Ohio, Columbus and had a population of 24,765 as of the United States Census 2020, 2020 census, down ...

. The lines became part of the B&O and CSX through leases and mergers. The Parkersburg Branch east from Parkersburg (formerly part of the Monongah Division) is now gone; the only connection there is with the

References

CSX Transportation lines Rail infrastructure in West Virginia Rail infrastructure in Ohio Baltimore and Ohio Railroad lines 1857 establishments in Ohio {{Ohio-transport-stub