Chesapeake and Ohio Railway
C&O system map in 1950 | |
| Overview | |
|---|---|
| Headquarters | Cleveland, Ohio, U.S. |
| Reporting mark | C&O, CO |
| Locale | Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Michigan, New York, Ohio, Ontario, Pennsylvania, Virginia, West Virginia, Wisconsin, and Washington, D.C. |
| Dates of operation | 1868–1987 |
| Predecessor | Louisa Railroad |
| Successor | CSX |
| Technical | |
| Track gauge | 4 ft 8+1⁄2 in (1,435 mm) standard gauge |
| Length | 5,067 mi (8,155 km) |
The Chesapeake and Ohio Railway (reporting marks C&O, CO) was a Class I railroad formed in 1869 in Virginia from several smaller Virginia railroads begun in the 19th century. Led by industrialist Collis Potter Huntington, it reached from Virginia's capital city of Richmond to the Ohio River by 1873, where the railroad town (and later city) of Huntington, West Virginia, was named for him.