u/CoachBerry18

CSXT 1776 has made her way back to the former Chesapeake and Ohio. Here she is 3rd of 4 on E123 today in Thurmond, WV. E123 is destined for Peach Creek yard in Logan, WV

It’s not every day you see an SD40-2 leading a main line train. CSXT 8094, built in 1980 for the Seaboard Coast Line with the same number, heads up R144 a recrew of an W011, around the corner and out of the tree tunnel at South Fayette, WV.

This is underneath the New River Gorge Bridge, the same spot featured in my post on CSXT 1871 a couple days ago. I didn’t get a chance to set up that angle on account of a busy parking lot of visitors to the national park.

A bit of a side note, I’m pretty sure every car in this train was ex Chesapeake and Ohio. You could see the former lettering underneath the modern CSXT lettering. Considering this is the former C&O main line, that’s quite appropriate.

Forgive the location not being mention in the title. I forgot to put it there. This is in West Virginia, USA

Let’s show something on CSX around here at someplace other than Thurmond. Here we have CSXT 1871, the road’s homage to the Atlantic Coast Line, passing under the New River Gorge Bridge heading up coal train C895 from Princeton, IN to Newport News, VA in August 2025.

Getting an “out of towner” leading on the old C&O is quite appropriate for an area that has seen a great increase in tourism since the New River Gorge became a national park. Though ACL disappeared as an independent company in 1967 after merging with the Seaboard Air Line, I like to think about the possibility that someone who may remember seeing ACL or any other out of town road may catch a glimpse of one of these units rolling through while they’re visiting the park and get a reminder of life back home. Who knows, it may spark a memory long forgotten and lead to some great stories for their families to hear and carry on.

For the Appalachian roads like the Chesapeake and Ohio, Chessie System, B&O, Western Maryland, these units present an opportunity for a little bit of a history lesson that you probably won’t find in any park service literature as the region’s past comes to life. Then again, it does every time a train rolls through, heritage unit or not.