Staunton spectator. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1849-1896, 1869-12-14
Chesapeake and Ohio R. r.

A late number OF the Stakeholder, published
in New York, describes the four great railroad
routes between the Mississippi river and the
four chief cities of the Atlantic seaboard, to wit:
the Vanderbilt, or New York Central combina-
ton; the Erie and Great w estern broad gauges;
the Pennsylvania road and its extensions, and
the Baltimore and Ohio system, with their
several interlacing branches: feeders and extern
sions at either end. 1t then considers our
Chesapeake and Ohio road, saying
'sWe perceive there is a new line now rapidly
pushing into the very field of production en-
braced by the great cities Of Cincinnati, Louis
vile, St Louis and Chicago. 1t is a short line
to tide-water and has the advantage of an equa-
BILE climate, adjacent coal deposits and low rul-
ing grades We refer to the Chesapeake and
Ohio railroad formerly the Virginia Central, J
begun, and for some time carried on, under the
auspices of the State of Virginia This line,
which reaches unfailing navigation at Richmond
Norfolk, West Point, and Washington on the
Chesapeake Bay, was carredin general western
direction across the Blue Ridge, and when the
war broke out was halted at Coyington (2O5
miles, the foot Of the main chain dividing the
waters Of the James from those of the Ohio
tributaries. The enterprise so long cut off and
set back by the cloud Of war has at last enlisted
the attention Of eminent New York capitalists,
who have been won by its merits, and it has
been reconstructed on a more solid basis
A. A. Low, W. II. Aspinwal, G. P. Hunt
ingdon, David Stewart, and other eminent CAPT
talists, leading men in the country In finance
and railways, with Fisk & Hatch as their bank
ers, are the active men in the new organization,
and having in the twelvemonth past completed
their arrangements, now proceed to put them
in force A corps of workmen are to be put on
the line at once, and it is expected that the road
will be completed and equipped to the confluence
of the big Sandy and Ohio rivers in less than
two years.
At this latter point roads are already building
| and projected to connectlt with Cincinnati via
Maysyille, with Louisville via Lexington, with
Chicago via Toledo and Xena and with Colum
bus via Portsmouth. Through these channel;
it will reach the whole Mississippi Valley sys
tenn and the Pacific railroads. 1t is said the
distance between Chicago and Washington b.
| this route is no greater and can be made in bet
| ter time than by the Pennsylvania or Baltimore
and Ohio routes, while from the central tier O.
cities the distance is fully fifty miles shorter tt
tide-water. and the gradients are thirty per cent
| lighter. The great feature of the business o.
the line will be found, however, in its touching
nearly twelve thousand miles of steamboat
navigation at its terminus on the Ohio river
Below the Kanawha and Big Sandy tributarie.
the Ohio is navigablc all the year, and boat.
can receive and discharge oargoes bound to ant
from most distant cities of the Mississippi Val
ley
This is emphatically short line-less thar
400 miles between the products Of the West anc
the vessels Of the Atlantic, and its low average
gradients, only occasionally reaching sevent.
feet to the mile, are Of the utmost Importance
in handling freight