Records, 1928-1982.

ArchivalResource

Chesapeake Western Railway. Records, 1928-1982.

Records, 1928-1982.

http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/39777026

This collection contains all the known extant operating records for the Chesapeake Western Railway Company. During the course of its existence, from 1871 to the early 1980s, it was owned by a number of investors and railroad companies and used a variety of tracks/lines most of which were located in Rockingham and Augusta Counties in Virginia (including at various times, the towns of Elkton, Harrisonburg, Bridgewater, Mt. Solon, Staunton, and Stokesville). The railroad's original raison d'etre was for carrying coal, although during its short boom years from around 1901 through the first decade or so, it carried predominately timber and tanbark. The CW originated as a chartered section of the Washington, Cincinnati and St. Louis Railroad. It later was incorporated into the Chesapeake, Shendun, and Western Railroad (later named the Chesapeake & Western Railroad). One of its most prominent owners was W.E.D. Stokes who bought the railroad in 1900 (when it was first named the Tidewater and West Virginia and then later the Chesapeake Western Railway, or CW); another important investor during the 1940s was Don W. Thomas. In 1954 the Norfolk & Western Railroad purchased the CW but the name was retained and it operated as a separate corporation until 1982 when the Norfolk & Western and the Southern Railway Company merged as the Norfolk Southern Corporation. In 1982, a five-alarm fire burned the CW office located in Harrisonburg. Today, the CW, under the control of the NS, serves as the Harrisonburg area's poultry feed supplier.

15 Hollinger boxs and 32 large unboxed volumes (ca. items).

James Madison University Libraries