The Chesapeake & Ohio Historical Society, a coalition headquartered in of Clifton Forge, Virginia, railroad museum offices, published its annual fundraising calendars recently, showcasing a trio of specific, rail-centric themes for 2022.
Unique for the coming year is one of the themes -- a calendar focusing, for the first time, on a specific region the C&O Railway has served extensively: the New River Gorge.
Chesapeake & Ohio Historical Society President Mark Totten explained why the New River Gorge was selected for the first-ever distinction. “There are instances where factors combine to create a completely unconventional set of historical circumstances on which we look back with wonder because of their uniqueness. Such is the case with the Chesapeake & Ohio Railway and the surrounding industries in the 20th century throughout the New River Gorge,” he said.
Totten said he saw fit to honor this region of West Virginia and its developmental ties to the C&O Railway, emphasizing their interconnectivity.
“The industrialization of the New River Gorge was a rise and fall of human technology and achievement amid one of the most rugged places in North America. It is a story of discovery, machines, nature and human grit.”
The former C&O Railway, now CSX Transportation, still runs through the New River Gorge from Gauley Bridge to Hinton, he said.
Along with depicting historical scenes throughout the New River Gorge from its industrial peak, the calendar includes special dedications to two living connections to railroad and industrial history in the New River Gorge: Marvin Plumley and Dorothy Jean Boley.
Marvin Plumley
A Meadow Bridge resident, Plumley, 74, was hired onto the C&O Railway in 1967. He worked various railroading jobs in Thurmond, Meadow Creek, Hinton, Raleigh, Gauley, Rainelle and the White Sulphur Springs depot.
He was born in a C&O Railway company house in 1947. "I lived at Meadow Creek, and trains were running by our house in the Sewell Valley," he said. "My dad worked on the railroad for 36 years and my grandfather worked on the railroad, so I guess it was in my veins.
"Going to work at Thurmond in 1967 was like going back in time. They still had the two-piece phones and the scissor phones on the operator's desk. I qualified on various jobs working up and down the river at places like Gauley Bridge and Raleigh.
"I thought it was kind of neat to go back to where I lived on Meadow Creek for 23 years, going back to the places of my childhood days where I knew all the people. We had a lot of respect for the people who held those railroad jobs in the past.
"My brother lived at Quinnimont, and my mom and dad lived at Quinnimont, and all the people I worked with -- the yardmaster and the clerks -- knew my parents when they lived there beginning in 1944. All the people there knew my family back to when I was born. It was good to just go back as a hometown boy and get a job on the railroad.
"When I was at Quinnimont and Prince, I knew all the people. It was just like a family reunion. I was right at home, which is why I liked working with people. They were all so nice. The atmosphere was altogether different than some of the places you go to," Plumley said.
He also worked for Amtrak as the station agent at Prince from 1984 until 2007. "Going back to Prince and qualifying for the ticket agent's job just a mile from where I was born and a mile from where I started school was memorable," he recounted. "I thought that was an honorable thing, and my mom and dad always thought the depot agent at Prince did a lot of things for a lot of people.
"The depot agent was a pretty prominent position back in my day and in times before that. The agent signed a lot of people up for unemployment benefits who were on the railroad, and delivered paychecks.
"Beginning work as the station agent at Prince was a bittersweet ordeal. I was glad to have the job and glad to be back near my home. I had walked past that station going to Quinnimont School with my brothers and sisters. But I knew my brother left from that station for the Army, and then his casket was returned on the #3 train at 7:35 a.m. on Aug. 8, 1953, after he was killed in Korea."
After retiring in 2007, Plumley became an active C&OHS member and volunteer, particularly by contributing to projects at the C&O Railway Heritage Center.
"The first project with C&OHS was to build a small track around the Heritage Center Museum. We worked on that every Saturday for a long time. We fixed a C&O crossbuck back up at the Heritage Center Museum and have started restoring a vintage railroad phone box," he said.
"Amtrak wanted me to use a new golf cart at the Prince station instead of the C&O baggage wagon. I put them off, because I didn't want to use a golf cart in case it broke down. I kept using that hand-powered baggage wagon, even though they were phasing them out.
"Later when I got the Prince baggage wagon after it was donated to the Society, it was splintered and you couldn't put much weight on it. It had been outside and was in bad shape since I used it at Prince. I agreed to take it and fix it up, thinking it would be in the condition it was in when I used it at Prince."
Plumley stripped down the wagon and acquired hemlock boards from a Nallen lumber company for the restoration.
"I had to straighten out the metal on it. I worked on it in my spare time. All total, it took about four months to where I could take pride in it. I wanted to put it back into the color and condition it was when I used it at Prince -- and I did."
The baggage wagon is on display at the Heritage Center Museum.
Dorothy Jean Boley
"Boley, of Hinton, is believed to be the last living female wartime hire on the C&O Railway, with memories that include seeing German prisoners of war captured from the Afrika Korps, traveling west through the Gorge aboard C&O trains to stateside camps, as she hand delivered paychecks to C&O road crews who were too busy in wartime to leave their trains," Totten said.
During her railroad career, Boley was secretary to the division superintendent, and dedicated her retirement years to the Hinton Railroad Museum.
“As many historians will agree, our history is best brought to life and taught to us through living connections to a subject, era or place," Totten said. "We revere the last living witnesses to wars, political dynasties, notable events, famous families and historical tragedies. Less frequently do we recognize the real people who successfully clawed out a society that never previously existed, now vanishing into history as quickly as better-known survivors of world events.
"In our photographic selections, we hoped to capture this world where they lived, worked and served. We also give thanks to their lifelong efforts ensuring their stories are not lost to time."
Plumley and Boley "represent just two of many thousands who lived and worked within this region of West Virginia for over 100 years," Totten said.
The New River Gorge calendar was also developed, in part, to honor the Fayette County natural landmark's designation as a national park and preserve earlier this year.
“Today the New River Gorge itself is silently returning to the wild, forever preserved as America’s newest national park, an example that nature is a stronger force than any technology that attempts to conquer it," Totten said. "But for a time, humankind conquered the wilderness, changing history and contributing to the world's progress throughout the 20th century. This calendar captures pieces from that unique intersection of history, when an industrial symphony echoed against the gorge, and people and machines briefly ruled the landscape.”
'The Railroad Kitten' and Steam Locomotive motifs
The other sets of 2022 calendars include the Chessie “The Railroad Kitten” version, the longest-running railroad-themed calendar in the United States, according to Totten. Published recently for the 88th year, the 2022 Chessie calendar features an assortment of vintage C&O Railway advertising art from the 1930s and 1940s.
"The art selected for 2022's Chessie calendar is intended to represent the 'Golden Era' of Chessie," Totten said. "In the decade before and during World War II, the advertising mascot was new and wildly popular with the traveling public, who saw the famous kitten and her family used in the railroad’s nationwide marketing campaigns.
"Beginning in 1933, she burst on the scene with unexpected vigor, surprising even the C&O Railway, which promptly hired a high-class advertising agency to promote her. The Wall Street Journal once called Chessie 'the kitten of destiny,'" he said.
The Chessie calendar reached its peak distribution with 425,000 copies in 1947, Totten added.
"The selections made for 2022 by the C&O Historical Society represent the best of Chessie, the Chesapeake & Ohio’s symbol of 'Pur-r-r-fect Transportation.'"
The C&OHS has also published its traditional calendar dedicated to Chesapeake & Ohio steam locomotive power, this year focusing on the C&O’s iconic 4-6-4 Hudson-type steam locomotives. The Hudson locomotives were used prominently throughout the Chesapeake & Ohio system.
The C&OHS' biggest fundraiser of the year, the calendars are available now, and they can be purchased in person at the C&O Railway Heritage Center Museum Gift Shop, online via ChessieShop.com or by calling 540-862-2210 from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. weekdays. The calendars cost $10.95 each or $25 for all three.
For holiday shopping opportunities, the C&OHS had added Sunday hours to its days of operation at the Heritage Center. “Following the pandemic’s impact on travel, and the necessary limitations on indoor destinations, we wanted to give the public additional options for making our museum a destination in 2021 as people safely returned to planning trips, either locally or from longer distances,” Totten explained.
The C&O Railway Heritage Center is from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Tuesday through Sunday at 705 Main St., a short walk from the Clifton Forge Amtrak station.
Engineering the C&OHS into the future
Totten's interest in trains and, eventually, their history, began early. "When I was a child, my father took me to see them several times when they were coming through Kanawha County," the Charleston resident said, "especially in January of 1985 when there were experiments taking place to study, with modern equipment, whether steam engines could be feasibly used again. In an era when steam locomotives didn't exist, seeing it happen on a regular basis was fascinating to me as a child.
"I started to visit the museum a little more than 10 years ago," he said, "and that eventually led me to volunteering, taking a leadership role and taking over the organization, and I've been operating it ever since."
His predecessor, Thomas Dixon Jr., founded the C&OHS and remains active with it. Dixon developed an interest in history as a teenager. He self-published a history of his hometown of Alderson in 1967 at age 20, while attending West Virginia University.
"From that, I became interested in railroading in general," the 75-year-old said from his Lynchburg, Va., home. "In Alderson, railroads connected you with everything. There were six passenger trains going through town every day. You could pick up your mail from them three times a day. On Saturday nights, before there was television, you'd go to the station to see who was coming and going on the #6 train."
While at WVU, Dixon met Gene Huddleston, who had published a book on C&O steam locomotives. After several discussions with his fellow rail enthusiast, Dixon began producing a newsletter and magazines on the C&O Railway. "That's how the C&O Historical Society basically started." Dixon continued to publish the newsletter ("kind of by remote control") and hundreds of articles and books during his 17 years in the Army. He was also the C&OHS president and chairman for its first 38 years and now serves as its chief historian, publications director and principal writer.
Since retiring from the Army in 1990, Dixon said, "my principal business has been operating the C&OHS Museum. I drive over three mountain ranges, 70 miles, three days a week to work there. On the other four days, I'm researching and writing articles for the Society."
While most railroad historical societies are volunteer run these days, he said, "we have a nine-person, paid staff here at Clifton Forge. If you have a question or a request, by cracky, you're going to get an answer from us.
"We realized about 30 years ago that we were the last generation where railroads were central to our daily lives," Dixon said. "We knew we weren't going to keep attracting fans of our type; the railroads didn't touch their lives every day like they did ours. That's why we created the museum, with eight buildings, eight acres of land, six tracks and a large, display-type museum. As our side of the organization declines [in membership], we hope the museum side will rise to keep it going. Right now, we're standing betwixt and between.
"It's a wonderful day trip -- a three-hour drive on I-64, or people can get on the Amtrak Cardinal from Huntington or Charleston, come to Clifton Forge and see us, visit the museum and the gift shop and maybe ride our little, park-type train while they're there," Dixon said.
Chesapeake & Ohio Historical Society President Mark Totten explained why the New River Gorge was selected for the first-ever distinction. “There are instances where factors combine to create a completely unconventional set of historical circumstances on which we look back with wonder because of their uniqueness. Such is the case with the Chesapeake & Ohio Railway and the surrounding industries in the 20th century throughout the New River Gorge,” he said.
Totten said he saw fit to honor this region of West Virginia and its developmental ties to the C&O Railway, emphasizing their interconnectivity.
“The industrialization of the New River Gorge was a rise and fall of human technology and achievement amid one of the most rugged places in North America. It is a story of discovery, machines, nature and human grit.”
The former C&O Railway, now CSX Transportation, still runs through the New River Gorge from Gauley Bridge to Hinton, he said.
Along with depicting historical scenes throughout the New River Gorge from its industrial peak, the calendar includes special dedications to two living connections to railroad and industrial history in the New River Gorge: Marvin Plumley and Dorothy Jean Boley.
Marvin Plumley
A Meadow Bridge resident, Plumley, 74, was hired onto the C&O Railway in 1967. He worked various railroading jobs in Thurmond, Meadow Creek, Hinton, Raleigh, Gauley, Rainelle and the White Sulphur Springs depot.
He was born in a C&O Railway company house in 1947. "I lived at Meadow Creek, and trains were running by our house in the Sewell Valley," he said. "My dad worked on the railroad for 36 years and my grandfather worked on the railroad, so I guess it was in my veins.
"Going to work at Thurmond in 1967 was like going back in time. They still had the two-piece phones and the scissor phones on the operator's desk. I qualified on various jobs working up and down the river at places like Gauley Bridge and Raleigh.
"I thought it was kind of neat to go back to where I lived on Meadow Creek for 23 years, going back to the places of my childhood days where I knew all the people. We had a lot of respect for the people who held those railroad jobs in the past.
"My brother lived at Quinnimont, and my mom and dad lived at Quinnimont, and all the people I worked with -- the yardmaster and the clerks -- knew my parents when they lived there beginning in 1944. All the people there knew my family back to when I was born. It was good to just go back as a hometown boy and get a job on the railroad.
"When I was at Quinnimont and Prince, I knew all the people. It was just like a family reunion. I was right at home, which is why I liked working with people. They were all so nice. The atmosphere was altogether different than some of the places you go to," Plumley said.
He also worked for Amtrak as the station agent at Prince from 1984 until 2007. "Going back to Prince and qualifying for the ticket agent's job just a mile from where I was born and a mile from where I started school was memorable," he recounted. "I thought that was an honorable thing, and my mom and dad always thought the depot agent at Prince did a lot of things for a lot of people.
"The depot agent was a pretty prominent position back in my day and in times before that. The agent signed a lot of people up for unemployment benefits who were on the railroad, and delivered paychecks.
"Beginning work as the station agent at Prince was a bittersweet ordeal. I was glad to have the job and glad to be back near my home. I had walked past that station going to Quinnimont School with my brothers and sisters. But I knew my brother left from that station for the Army, and then his casket was returned on the #3 train at 7:35 a.m. on Aug. 8, 1953, after he was killed in Korea."
After retiring in 2007, Plumley became an active C&OHS member and volunteer, particularly by contributing to projects at the C&O Railway Heritage Center.
"The first project with C&OHS was to build a small track around the Heritage Center Museum. We worked on that every Saturday for a long time. We fixed a C&O crossbuck back up at the Heritage Center Museum and have started restoring a vintage railroad phone box," he said.
"Amtrak wanted me to use a new golf cart at the Prince station instead of the C&O baggage wagon. I put them off, because I didn't want to use a golf cart in case it broke down. I kept using that hand-powered baggage wagon, even though they were phasing them out.
"Later when I got the Prince baggage wagon after it was donated to the Society, it was splintered and you couldn't put much weight on it. It had been outside and was in bad shape since I used it at Prince. I agreed to take it and fix it up, thinking it would be in the condition it was in when I used it at Prince."
Plumley stripped down the wagon and acquired hemlock boards from a Nallen lumber company for the restoration.
"I had to straighten out the metal on it. I worked on it in my spare time. All total, it took about four months to where I could take pride in it. I wanted to put it back into the color and condition it was when I used it at Prince -- and I did."
The baggage wagon is on display at the Heritage Center Museum.
Dorothy Jean Boley
"Boley, of Hinton, is believed to be the last living female wartime hire on the C&O Railway, with memories that include seeing German prisoners of war captured from the Afrika Korps, traveling west through the Gorge aboard C&O trains to stateside camps, as she hand delivered paychecks to C&O road crews who were too busy in wartime to leave their trains," Totten said.
During her railroad career, Boley was secretary to the division superintendent, and dedicated her retirement years to the Hinton Railroad Museum.
“As many historians will agree, our history is best brought to life and taught to us through living connections to a subject, era or place," Totten said. "We revere the last living witnesses to wars, political dynasties, notable events, famous families and historical tragedies. Less frequently do we recognize the real people who successfully clawed out a society that never previously existed, now vanishing into history as quickly as better-known survivors of world events.
"In our photographic selections, we hoped to capture this world where they lived, worked and served. We also give thanks to their lifelong efforts ensuring their stories are not lost to time."
Plumley and Boley "represent just two of many thousands who lived and worked within this region of West Virginia for over 100 years," Totten said.
The New River Gorge calendar was also developed, in part, to honor the Fayette County natural landmark's designation as a national park and preserve earlier this year.
“Today the New River Gorge itself is silently returning to the wild, forever preserved as America’s newest national park, an example that nature is a stronger force than any technology that attempts to conquer it," Totten said. "But for a time, humankind conquered the wilderness, changing history and contributing to the world's progress throughout the 20th century. This calendar captures pieces from that unique intersection of history, when an industrial symphony echoed against the gorge, and people and machines briefly ruled the landscape.”
'The Railroad Kitten' and Steam Locomotive motifs
The other sets of 2022 calendars include the Chessie “The Railroad Kitten” version, the longest-running railroad-themed calendar in the United States, according to Totten. Published recently for the 88th year, the 2022 Chessie calendar features an assortment of vintage C&O Railway advertising art from the 1930s and 1940s.
"The art selected for 2022's Chessie calendar is intended to represent the 'Golden Era' of Chessie," Totten said. "In the decade before and during World War II, the advertising mascot was new and wildly popular with the traveling public, who saw the famous kitten and her family used in the railroad’s nationwide marketing campaigns.
"Beginning in 1933, she burst on the scene with unexpected vigor, surprising even the C&O Railway, which promptly hired a high-class advertising agency to promote her. The Wall Street Journal once called Chessie 'the kitten of destiny,'" he said.
The Chessie calendar reached its peak distribution with 425,000 copies in 1947, Totten added.
"The selections made for 2022 by the C&O Historical Society represent the best of Chessie, the Chesapeake & Ohio’s symbol of 'Pur-r-r-fect Transportation.'"
The C&OHS has also published its traditional calendar dedicated to Chesapeake & Ohio steam locomotive power, this year focusing on the C&O’s iconic 4-6-4 Hudson-type steam locomotives. The Hudson locomotives were used prominently throughout the Chesapeake & Ohio system.
The C&OHS' biggest fundraiser of the year, the calendars are available now, and they can be purchased in person at the C&O Railway Heritage Center Museum Gift Shop, online via ChessieShop.com or by calling 540-862-2210 from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. weekdays. The calendars cost $10.95 each or $25 for all three.
For holiday shopping opportunities, the C&OHS had added Sunday hours to its days of operation at the Heritage Center. “Following the pandemic’s impact on travel, and the necessary limitations on indoor destinations, we wanted to give the public additional options for making our museum a destination in 2021 as people safely returned to planning trips, either locally or from longer distances,” Totten explained.
The C&O Railway Heritage Center is from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Tuesday through Sunday at 705 Main St., a short walk from the Clifton Forge Amtrak station.
Engineering the C&OHS into the future
Totten's interest in trains and, eventually, their history, began early. "When I was a child, my father took me to see them several times when they were coming through Kanawha County," the Charleston resident said, "especially in January of 1985 when there were experiments taking place to study, with modern equipment, whether steam engines could be feasibly used again. In an era when steam locomotives didn't exist, seeing it happen on a regular basis was fascinating to me as a child.
"I started to visit the museum a little more than 10 years ago," he said, "and that eventually led me to volunteering, taking a leadership role and taking over the organization, and I've been operating it ever since."
His predecessor, Thomas Dixon Jr., founded the C&OHS and remains active with it. Dixon developed an interest in history as a teenager. He self-published a history of his hometown of Alderson in 1967 at age 20, while attending West Virginia University.
"From that, I became interested in railroading in general," the 75-year-old said from his Lynchburg, Va., home. "In Alderson, railroads connected you with everything. There were six passenger trains going through town every day. You could pick up your mail from them three times a day. On Saturday nights, before there was television, you'd go to the station to see who was coming and going on the #6 train."
While at WVU, Dixon met Gene Huddleston, who had published a book on C&O steam locomotives. After several discussions with his fellow rail enthusiast, Dixon began producing a newsletter and magazines on the C&O Railway. "That's how the C&O Historical Society basically started." Dixon continued to publish the newsletter ("kind of by remote control") and hundreds of articles and books during his 17 years in the Army. He was also the C&OHS president and chairman for its first 38 years and now serves as its chief historian, publications director and principal writer.
Since retiring from the Army in 1990, Dixon said, "my principal business has been operating the C&OHS Museum. I drive over three mountain ranges, 70 miles, three days a week to work there. On the other four days, I'm researching and writing articles for the Society."
While most railroad historical societies are volunteer run these days, he said, "we have a nine-person, paid staff here at Clifton Forge. If you have a question or a request, by cracky, you're going to get an answer from us.
"We realized about 30 years ago that we were the last generation where railroads were central to our daily lives," Dixon said. "We knew we weren't going to keep attracting fans of our type; the railroads didn't touch their lives every day like they did ours. That's why we created the museum, with eight buildings, eight acres of land, six tracks and a large, display-type museum. As our side of the organization declines [in membership], we hope the museum side will rise to keep it going. Right now, we're standing betwixt and between.
"It's a wonderful day trip -- a three-hour drive on I-64, or people can get on the Amtrak Cardinal from Huntington or Charleston, come to Clifton Forge and see us, visit the museum and the gift shop and maybe ride our little, park-type train while they're there," Dixon said.
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