REBIRTH ON THE OLD N&W PEAVINE
BY DAVID T. ROHDENBURG/PHOTOS BY THE AUTHOR O
PERATING ON THE FAMED “PEAVINE” of the Norfolk & Western (which once extended from Cincinnati to
Portsmouth), Cincinnati East Terminal Railway (CCET) became the newest shortline railroad in the Frontier Rail family when operations began on April 28, 2014. Leasing the westernmost 23 miles of the Norfolk Southern Cincinnati District, CCET operates from Clare Yard, near Red Bank, to Williamsburg, Ohio. The first cut to the Peavine came
when the easternmost portion, from Plum Run to Vera Junction (Portsmouth Yard Limit), was railbanked in 2003, in part due to the large bridge over the Scioto River needing major repairs. Next, the segment between Plum Run and Williamsburg was railbanked after NS ran its final local freight on April 26, 2014, just before the CCET took control of the west end. Much of that second cut
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made a comeback, though. On January 21, 2015, NS and the CCET jointly filed with the Surface Transportation Board to amend the CCET’s lease with an additional 29 miles of trackage, from Williamsburg east to Seaman, Ohio, and CCET began operations on the additional trackage in March.
History
For many the Peavine (the nickname comes from the line’s
circuitous
route) immediately evokes images of streamlined J-Class 4-8-4s powering Tuscan Red passenger cars on the N&W’s premiere passenger trains, and A-Class and Y-Class articulated steamers pulling freight. The Peavine has a very rich history, dating back to 1876 with the beginning of construction on the narrow gauge Cincinnati & Eastern Railway. The C&E completed construction of the
line, linking Cincinnati and Portsmouth, in 1884. The next year the C&E began converting the line to standard gauge, but completed only about half of the route before running into financial trouble and going bankrupt. In 1886, the portion of the line that had been standard gauged was converted back to narrow gauge, eliminating the need to change equipment halfway through a train’s journey between Cincinnati and Portsmouth. The C&E went into foreclosure in 1887 and was purchased by the Ohio & Northwestern Railroad, which immediately converted the entire route to standard gauge, ending a very unusual chapter in the line’s history. The O&NW was reorganized and renamed the Cincinnati, Portsmouth & Virginia Railroad in 1891. The CP&V prospered, making many improvements along the line as well as developing
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