(The Huntington Dispatch posted the following story by Bob Withers on its website on March 3.)
HUNTINGTON, W.Va. — Former Chesapeake & Ohio Railway steam locomotive 1308 has joined more than 73,000 buildings, sites, structures, objects and districts on the National Register of Historic Places.
The new federal status recognizes the engine’s contribution to local history — primarily as a surviving example of the railroad’s final stand in favor of coal-fired engines — and makes its maintenance eligible for federal funds.
The appointment has resurrected memories of those who were familiar with the 1308 and her sisters in their better days.
“They were good engines,” says O B Evans of Huntington, who worked for C&O as a fireman and engineer from 1955 to 1965. “They handled well.”
“Everybody wanted them,” says Harry Burks of Barboursville, who retired from C&O successor CSX Transportation in 1985. “They were easy to fire.”
Placing a locomotive on the National Register isn’t that rare, says Alan Rowe, National Register coordinator for the West Virginia Division of Culture and History s Historical Preservation Office. There are 44 steam locomotives already listed — including the General and the Texas, made famous by the Andrews Raid during the Civil War. Other railroad equipment on the Register includes private car Ferdinand Magellan, which was used by Presidents Franklin Roosevelt, Truman, Eisenhower and Reagan, and private cars Denali and Superb, which President Harding rode on his 1923 cross-country trip during which he died.
But the 1308 is the first West Virginia locomotive to be listed individually on the Register. The original Cass Scenic Railroad Shay locomotives in Pocahontas County were listed as a group in 1974.
The 1308 was built for the C&O as a result of the company’s decision to replace steamers that were worn out following the heavy demands placed on them by World War II. The railroad ordered 25 locomotives of its type from Baldwin Locomotive Works in Eddystone, Pa., in 1948. But after labor unrest in the coalfields reduced the mines number of productive days in 1949 to 170, C&O s revenues plummeted and costs rose. So, the railroad reduced the order to 10 locomotives.
Engines 1300 through 1309 were delivered beginning in September 1949 — the last steam locomotives Baldwin built for use in the United States. They were assigned to the yard at Peach Creek, W.Va., near Logan, and worked most of the time delivering empties and picking up loads at mines in the area. Occasionally, they handled trains between Peach Creek and Russell, Ky.
As “modern” as these locomotives were, though, the onslaught of diesels overtook them, and they were all retired by 1956 — after only seven years in service. The 1308 made her last trip Feb. 29, 1956, and she was soon placed in storage at Russell.
C&O gave the engine to the Collis P. Huntington Railroad Historical Society Inc. in September 1962, and it has remained on display at Memorial Boulevard and 14th Street West ever since.
The only other locomotive from that Baldwin order that has survived — the 1309 — is on display at the B&O Railroad Museum in Baltimore. The other eight were scrapped.