By 1927, the Chesapeake Western Railroad had been sold to a local owner by the estate of its former owner, W.E.D. Stokes. The new owner, a former railway conductor turned business man, saw the value the route had, even after years of neglect following Stokes’ passing. He made quick work of the turn around, cutting back the mainline from Stokesville to Dayton, VA and drumming up new business for the railroad. While traffic picked up, the railroad still faced several challenges. Tight curves and the 2% grade between Elkton and Harrisonburg limited train size. Motive power also increasingly became an issue as its 4-4-0 steam locomotives grew older. Six 4-8-0 locomotives were purchased from the Norfolk & Western in 1943 but these didn’t last long as they were replaced by three brand new Baldwin DS-4-4-660 diesel switchers in 1946. During this same time, the company purchased the remanents of the Baltimore & Ohio’s Virginia Extension. The B&O had purchased this line from the Shenandoah Valley Railroad in 1880s, hoping to connect with it with the N&W near Roanoke but soon lost its lease on the line north of Harrisonburg in 1895. This left the remaining trackage between Harrisonburg and Lexington, VA as a disconnected branch line. Soon after selling the line to the CW, it was cut back from Lexington to Staunton as little traffic remained south of that point. The junction between the lines, now renamed Blacks Junction saw a south-east connecting track installed. The new Baldwins were a welcome upgrade for the railroad and were well liked by crews and mechanics. Operations around this time consisted of two trains, the road job and the switcher. The road job typically took two of the units out of the engine house in Harrisonburg, collecting cars from the previous day’s work, before running east to Elkton. There they’d turn north on the Norfolk & Western mainline and run to Shenandoah Yard. After working the yard, they’d turn back and after making it to Elkton, start the long slog back westward. Trains usually had to be doubled to get over the slope due to the steep westward grade. Once over the grade, cars for Harrisonburg would be dropped before the job worked its way south to Staunton. The train then returned to Harrisonburg where the crew retired to their quarters, awaiting another day of work. The other job, using one unit, stays around Harrisonburg, working the yard, Southern interchange, local industries, and the Bridgewater Branch. With an uptick in traffic, the “Crooked and Weedy” soon upgraded much of its mainline with heavier rail, allowing for speeds of up to 20 miles per hour over the majority of the route. The DS-4-4-660s worked well for the railroad until 1966 when a pair of ex-CBQ VO-1000 units were purchased. These 1,000 h.p. locomotives were brought in to help with increasing traffic and took over the road job. With Baldwin now out of business and parts becoming more scarce, DS-4-4-660 #662 was retired in 1971 and stripped over the next eight years. Around this same time, the line’s owner died at the age of 89. With his family uninterested in continuing the operation, ownership of the company was transferred to its management, making it an employee-owned company. In 1984, the road came into possession of Norfolk Southern’s Harrisonburg Branch between Harrisonburg and Bowman, VA. The recently-formed company was looking to cut back its operations and with line abandonment north of Bowman, NS decided it would be easier to consolidate operations with the CW than operate the line on its own. In addition to a new local needed to run up the line, several chicken feed mills along the line require unit grain trains. During peak season, up to three of these trains are seen each week. To power the grainers, the railroad sends its entire fleet along with two crews to Shenandoah Yard. There one locomotive along with one crew connects to the head end and MUs to the NS road power. Meanwhile, the other crew takes its three units to the rear of the train where they act as helpers. While this may seem like overkill, it must be remembered that the grade into Harrisonburg is very steep and the Baldwins were small units. Once the train is unloaded (about two or three days), a crew will come back with one of the Baldwins and pilot the train back to the NS interchange. This new addition almost tripled traffic over the railroad and as such, the Chesapeake Western started looking for bigger motive power. The company leased four SW8s from Precision National starting in 1982 with an additional three NW2s added the next year. These units sidelined the Baldwins and though unfamiliar to the CW, they soon came to be well liked due to their high reliability and better tractive effort. Three years into their lease, the SW8s were purchased, repainted, and renumbered, however the NW2s were returned after five years due to their age. In their place, the Baldwin fleet was once again awakened and put into service. The EMD and Baldwin combo worked well for the railroad. The SW8s became a mainstay on the road job as well grain trains while the Baldwins worked the yard and local jobs. 1990 saw the company purchase a lone MP15DC from EMD. Having just come off a long-term lease from the Reading and subsequently Conrail, it had been used but still had much life left. This acquisition allowed the company to retire both VO-1000s with one being scrapped for parts and the other donated to a local museum. Growing its business further, the Chesapeake Western began developing transloading sites to pull in customers who aren’t located trackside. The first of these was built just north of Harrisonburg with a second one near Elkton. Together, these sites have added over 300 additional carloads each year. Going farther afield, the railroad has opened operations in Richmond, VA, Norfolk, VA, and Durham, NC under the Chesapeake Transload name. To further help goods move on the railroad, the company started its own trucking division known as VFF, Virginia Freight Forwarding. VFF’s fleet of 25 trucks are mainly used in dedicated service although the company does reserve some rigs for spot jobs. With endcab switcher prices skyrocketing due to their relative rarity, the railroad knew that in order to replace its last Baldwins, it would have to look at other locomotive types. During the search, the railroad found many EMD GP and SD locomotives for sale but many were at very high price points compared to what the railroad wanted due to a used locomotive shortage at the time. The railroad finally settled on a pair of former Union Pacific GP40Xs owned by NRE. Due to their oddball design and need for a rebuild, the units were at a price that the railroad could afford and both were quickly put in service on the roster. Unusual for the railroad, neither unit was repainted and the pair became known as the Grody and Paintless units. With these units in play, DS-4-4-660 #663 was donated the Virginia Museum of Transportation while #661 was put in reserve. With a healthy parts supply and lots of railroad pride, the Chesapeake Western’s first diesel is sure to last a long time pulling special trains and excursion runs using the road’s caboose. 2004 saw it make a special appreance during the city of Harrisonburg’s 225th anniversary and it runs trains during the CW’s Train Day annually. GP40X #2001 was sent to PRL in Muncie, IN in 2006 where it was rebuilt and repainted. It retained its unique HT-B trucks as well as its signature flared radiator. The railroad purchased three pairs of HT-B trucks from NRE, who had rebuilt a number of GP40Xs for Candian Pacific, exchanging the high traction units for standard Blombergs. This ensured the HT-B’s future on the railroad. The CW’s transloading unit purchased the assets of Houff Corporation’s transloading and transportation services, both a customer of the railroad and a competitor. Houff’s state of the art transload facilities were a great addition and expanded the company’s operations into liquids and gases. While the second GP40X was scheduled to be rebuilt in 2008, the financial crisis prevented such work along with stopping most trains on the railroad. As business picked back up post-recession, the Chesapeake Western brought new locomotives to the region when it purchased an SD18M, GP35, and a GP38 from Ottawa Valley Railroad in eastern Ontario and Quebec in 2011. At the time of purchase, all three units had been sitting dead in North Bay, Ontario for a number of years. Soon after purchase, the GP35 was cut up for parts while the GP38 and SD18M were placed into service, supplementing GP40X #2002 as that unit awaited a rebuild. The newly acquired units were used to haul heavy trains up the grueling grade into Harrisonburg. The railroad also began running running grain trains into the local feed mills with their own power, reducing their need for expensive NS run-through locomotives. Using the GP40X, GP38, and SD18M along with two or three end cabs on the rear, the CW can move these trains up and down their mainline, albeit very slowly. The CW traded one of its SW8s to Progress Rail in exchange for a rebuild of GP40X #2002, upgrading it to the specifications that sister #2001 had received years before. GP38 #2201 was also upgraded with Dash 3 electronics in 2014 along with SD18M #1801. Impressed with the technology’s performance, railroad also began upgrading its SW8s with the system and had the units completely rebuilt, replacing their original 567B power assemblies with newer 645 units which both fixed the many ailments found with the older engines and allowed the units to be rerated for 1500 HP. This noticeably improved their performance and brought them in-spec with the MP15. Four miles of the orginial mainline between Harrisonburg and Dayton were placed out-of-service in 2016 when a small bridge carrying the tracks over Black’s Run collapsed. While trying to service the lone remaining customer near Dayton, the bridge gave out under the weight of SW8-3 #803 and two loaded TTX flat cars. None of the equipment suffered major damage but #803’s frame was bent and after being moved back to the shop complex, it became a part source for the remaining two SW8-3s. The trackage is still owned by the railroad in hopes of one day rebuilding the bridge, though these prospects are low on account of a limited traffic base. The customer still ships with the railroad as they move loads from their facility via truck to the transload in Harrisonburg. The railroad purchased its largest unit during late 2019 in the form of AEX SD40-3MR #100020. The big SD40-type had previously served on the Portland & Western in Oregon and originally was the first locomotive ever to employ a Dash 3 electrical system. After being repainted and renumbered to #2501, the unit was revealed as part of the Chesapeake & Western’s 125th anniversary celebration, which saw excursion trains, photoshoots, and much more. The company’s most recent acquisition came in late 2023 when three Union Pacific GP15-1s replaced the SD18 and MP15DC. The former was cut up for scrap, while the later was sold to LTEX for lease service. The new units worked well with the rest of the roster and are commonly assigned to local work around Harrisonburg. Versatile by necessity, the CW has proven itself capable of anything and will continue to thrive in the years to come.
- Current Roster
#661 DS-4-4-660
#802, #804 SW8-3 Ex-PNCX #1114, #1121, Rebuilt SW8
#1501-#1503 GP15-1 Ex-UPY #598, #615, #661
#2001, #2002 GP40X-3 Ex-UP #958, #959, Rebuilt GP40X
#2201 GP38-3 Ex-RLK #2002, Rebuilt GP38
#2501 SD40-3MR Ex-AEX #100020, Rebuilt SD40
- Former Roster
#1501 MP15DC Ex-CR #9629
#1801 SD18M-3 Ex-RLK #1800, Rebuilt SD18M
#662, #663 DS-4-4-660
#1001, #1002 VO-1000 Ex-CBQ #9352, #9371
CW SW8-3 #804
CW MP15DC #1501
CW GP40X-3 #2002
