B&O was founded in 1827, began operating in 1830 and is hailed as the first common carrier railroad in the United States. B&O linked Chicago, Springfield, and St. Louis in the west with Washington, Baltimore and Philadelphia to the east. New York City was connected through with partner railroads: Reading and Jersey Central. B&O also served Indianapolis, Louisville, Toledo, Cleveland, Cincinnati, Dayton, Columbus, Charleston WV, and Pittsburgh. Their motto was “Linking 13 Great States with the Nation.”

B&O had the distinct disadvantage of being in the shadows of two large Eastern Trunk lines: NYC and PRR. B&O routes were longer and more mountainous than the others. They field storied passenger trains such as the Capitol Limited (Nos. 5 & 6), The National Limited (Nos.1 & 2), The Shenadoah (No.s 7&8), The Washington-Chicago Express (Nos. 9 &10), The Ambassador (Nos. 19 & 20), Nos. 53-54 The Cincinnatian. Always a frugal railroad, their excellent car shop rebuild and modernized their obsolete rolling stock into “streamlined” cars.

In 1960, C&O began purchasing B&O stock in earnest. C&O officially gained control of the B&O in 1962. While operations were largely kept separate, marketing and other incidental functions were combined, including publishing joint C&O/B&O passenger timetables. Later, some of B&O passenger cars were repainted in the merged colors. At this time, passenger trains in the original B&O, merged B&O and C&O painted schemes began showing up. Fred Farley’s book “Twlight of the Great Trains” has a nice write up on C&O/B&O passenger operations in this period of time. These baggage cars were C&O ancestry painted in the new B&O merged colors.