CSX Pays Tribute to Predecessor B&O
Written by William C. Vantuono, Editor-in-Chief
CSX employees at the Waycross Locomotive Shop are painting several road units into adaptations of predecessor railroads. The first heritage design, applied to a Wabtec ES44AH honors the Baltimore & Ohio, chartered in 1827 as first common-carrier railroad in the U.S.
CSX President and CEO Joe Hinrichs and Executive Vice President and COO Jamie Boychuck launched the heritage locomotive project, which has been embraced by Mechanical Operations employees led by Carman Painter JD Cremeans.
The inaugural unit, renumbered CSX 1827 in recognition of the year the B&O was chartered, “combines colors from the modern CSX and the most recognized of the many B&O paint schemes,” CSX noted. “It carries the modern CSX logo on the front and the B&O’s iconic capitol dome logo on the rear.” The design was initiated by JD Cremeans, a 25-year CSX employee and generational railroader at the CSX locomotive shop in Huntington, W.Va.
“Much like the diverse employees who make up the ONE CSX team, today’s CSX is comprised of many heritage railroads, each of which adds a unique chapter to the story of the modern company,” CSX noted. Those railroads, among which are several pre-CSX mergers, include the B&O, Chesapeake & Ohio, Seaboard Air Line, Atlantic Coast Line, Seaboard Coast Line, Chessie System, Louisville & Nashville, Clinchfield, Atlanta & West Point, Monon, Georgia Railroad and Western Maryland. If the Conrail system, 42% of which CSX acquired in a split with Norfolk Southern in 1999, as well as Pan Am Railways, which CSX acquired in 2022, are considered, the processor railroads would include the Penn Central, New York Central, Conrail (and some of its predecessor roads), Boston & Maine, Maine Central, Portland Terminal Company, Springfield Terminal, Delaware & Hudson, Guilford Rail System and Pan Am.
A similar livery was created for CSX’s Executive Train, which was refurbished at Waycross.
Watch this copyrighted YouTube video by Aaron Van Amburg of No. 1827 leading a CSX manifest freight.
