The Construction of the West End

The following text is a short historical account of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad's construction through northern West Virginia. Originally written as a college term paper, it has been re-formated for use on the internet.

On the Fourth of July in 1828, the city of Baltimore, Maryland, threw a tremendous celebration not only commemorating the nation’s founding, but also to celebrate the laying of the first stone of the nation’s first railroad. The laying of this block of stone would begin the epic story of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad whose owners dreamed of capturing the wealth flowing east and west along the National Road. Fourteen years after the July Fourth groundbreaking at Baltimore, the railroad reached the foot of the Allegheny Mountains at Cumberland, Maryland, on November, 3, 1842. It would be from this town where the B&O would leave the Potomac tidewater and cross the untamed wilderness of the mountains to fulfill it’s name, the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad.

Once the Baltimore and Ohio had reached the town of Cumberland, Maryland, in 1842, a decision had to be made that would determine where the railroad would reach the Ohio River. This decision, however, was not entirely in the hands of the B&O owners. The railroad was originally granted permission to build across north western Virginia in it’s 1828 Virginia charter to reach the Ohio River at Parkersburg, Virginia. In 1838 the Virginia legislature withdrew this permission and required the railroad to effectively end it’s tracks at Wheeling if it were to build across north western Virginia.

To the north was strong opposition against the terminus being located at Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and Pennsylvanian politicians eventually blocked the building of the B&O with a law which forbid the railroad from laying one tie on Pennsylvanian soil. This law also served as an additional insurance policy so the B&O would not infringe on it’s rival’s, the Pennsylvania Railroad, traffic. Due to these legal actions, the B&O had only three major options: A) Simply stop the railroad’s expansion and content itself to remain in Cumberland, B) remain in Cumberland and wait until the future when a charter might be obtained for the construction to Pittsburgh or C) start construction west out of Cumberland through Virginia towards Wheeling.

After six years of debate, the decision to go to the Ohio River through Virginia was made after the election of Thomas Swann to President of the Company on the Eleventh of October, 1848. During that same year, Swann had sent out surveyors to the west to find a suitable route for the railroad. After looking over several different routes, Swann and his Chief Engineer, Benjamin Latrobe, decided on a route that would be called in later years, the West End.

The construction of the West End began on the Twenty third of May, 1849, near the present day site of Swanton, Maryland. Originally, the railroad planned to hire employees directly to the company but decided instead in November of 1849 to contract the entire line out in sections of one mile in lengths; by June of 1850, almost all sections had been contracted out. As time passed, the Baltimore and Ohio leaders discovered that several contractors could not complete their sections and the company would have to hire workers to complete the job.

Work was well underway by the fall of 1850 and the line was completed to Piedmont, Virginia by July of 1851. From Cumberland to Piedmont, the railroad took an easy path by following the North Branch of the Potomac south to New Creek, Virginia and then turning west along the Savage River to reach Piedmont. As railroads go, this section of the West End was a fairly easy portion to build but from Piedmont west, the real work had just begun.

Outside of Piedmont, the B&O followed the Savage River Canyon upgrade along Backbone Mountain. To the company, the construction of this grade of seventeen miles was an enormous undertaking, in monetary costs and human lives. Irish workers were imported from Ireland in large numbers and the workers regularly became a bigger problem than the construction itself, mainly due to the mountain whiskey in the area. At one point during construction, upwards of 5,000 men were employed on the entire line from Cumberland, Maryland, to Wheeling, WV. However, no accurate records were kept of the actual number employed or the deaths during the construction of the railroad, but folklore has it that Seventeen Mile grade is a vast unmarked graveyard of immigrant workers. Another feature of Seventeen Mile grade is it’s gradient of 2.2 percent against gravity which was considered extremely steep for railroads of that era and even for the modern ones. The summit of the Alleghenies was breached at the current site of Altamont, Maryland, and to the present this fact is proclaimed on a stone marker there.

From the summit at Altamont, Maryland, the B&O easily transversed the Allegheny flat lands know as the “Glades” for approximately nineteen miles to Cranberry Summit, the current site of Terra Alta, West Virginia. From Cranberry Summit the railroad descended Briery Mountain to the Cheat River valley on an eleven mile grade named Cranberry of over 2.8 percent gradient in places. Cranberry grade was another major undertaking during the construction of the line with two tunnels having to be drilled and several major cuts dug out. The death toll on the immigrant workers was once again high and some of those who died were buried in a small cemetery which still exists a few miles south of Terra Alta.

After reaching the Cheat River Valley, Latrobe ordered the construction of a Fink designed iron and masonry bridge across the Cheat River to the present day site of Rowlesburg, West Virginia. From Rowlesburg the railroad began another torturous climb up and out of the valley on a two percent grade of five miles. This portion of the line required cutting into Laurel Mountain to gain ample room to place the roadbed. Four small streams ran perpendicular across the railroad’s intended path and the construction of several large fills and two large viaducts were required. The viaduct which crossed Tray Run is depicted on the back of the West Virginia state flag as a reminder of the B&O’s legacy in West Virginia’s history. Finally, the railroad crested Laurel Mountain at Cassidy Summit, now named Blazer, West Virginia. In costs of money, the construction of the Cheat River grade with its many fills, viaducts and mountain removal was one of the most expensive sections on the entire railroad up to that point.

Leaving Cassidy Summit, the line of road ran to the current site of Tunnelton, West Virginia, where the Baltimore and Ohio’s combat engineers punched through Laurel Mountain with the 4100 foot Kingwood Tunnel - a tunnel which would become one the most ruinous and costly bores on the entire line. Many times during construction the tunnel ceiling would cave in crushing men and equipment. On the inaugural run to the present day location of Fairmont, West Virginia, with a train load of B&O VIP’s, the tunnel once again collapsed resulting in the detour of the train via a very steep switchback over the top of the hill. This tunnel was not corrected until a 1912 improvement when a new double track bore was built to relieve the traffic pressures on it.

From Kingwood Tunnel, the railroad began its descent of the fourth and final grade on the West End. After exiting the tunnel, the track followed Raccoon Creek down the nine mile long 2.3 percent Newburg grade to the present site of Newburg, West Virginia. From Newburg the railroad followed Three Forks Creek downhill until it reached the junction with Tygart Valley Creek on January, 23, 1852. The confluence of these two streams would become the present day location of Grafton, West Virginia.

The next portion of the mainline to Wheeling, Virginia, would run from Three Forks Creek along the Tygart River to Fairmont, Virginia. At Fairmont, the railroad crossed the Monongahela River on what was the nation’s largest iron bridge at that time. The line was open to Fairmont on the June, 22, 1852, when an excursion train from Baltimore crossed the Monongahela River to the celebration of the local citizens. From this point, the B&O would head north along Buffalo Creek past the present day site of Mannington, West Virginia, and then follow Fish Creek to towards the PA border. About two miles north of the present day site of Littleton, West Virginia, the railroad skirted the Pennsylvania state line within half a mile. It was originally feared that the railroad could not continue without having to go through Pennsylvania, thus making this route impossible because of the PA anti-B&O law. However, Benjamin Latrobe saw a way to press on and ordered the construction of the Board Tree Tunnel, allowing the B&O to avoid Pennsylvania. From Board Tree, the railroad descended on a small grade to Grave Creek and followed it to the Ohio River at Moundsville, Virginia, then north along the Ohio until the last spike was driven near Wheeling on Christmas Eve, 1852, three hundred and seventy nine miles from the Chesapeake Bay .

The first official train from Baltimore, Maryland, reached Wheeling, Virginia, on the First of January, 1853, to a tremendous celebration of both the New Year and of the opening of the first railroad across the mountains. Within a few days, the line was open to regular business and revenue traffic began to greatly increase on the line. During this time period, the company repaired and replaced many rush jobs that had taken place during the surge to reach Wheeling by the first day of 1853. For the next several years the B&O gradually began to work out operations through northern Virginia and it appeared the railroad would be prospering for a long time to come. Soon other western railroads connected with the B&O at Wheeling and in 1857, the Northwestern Virginia Railroad, in reality the B&O in disguise, completed a line running from Grafton, Virginia to Parkersburg, Virginia, and made connections with other railroads to the west. In July of 1857, a B&O excursion train ran from Baltimore to the gateway of the west, St. Louis, Missouri. With the railroad now open to the Western frontier, traffic flooded onto the mainline and more dreams of expansion had began to fill the B&O’s owner’s heads when the storm clouds began to form on the railroad’s east end. On October 17, 1859, John Brown and his armed band arrived at Harpers Ferry, Virginia, and promptly killed the B&O station master, Fontaine Beckham, and a porter before taking refuge in the armory. This action would become the opening act in a great Civil War in which the Baltimore and Ohio would be caught directly in the middle of the opposing sides.
But that, is another story.....

THE END

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