Talk:Baltimore and Ohio Railroad

A less fancy 1891 map by Poor's: a better illustration?

Martinsburg WV shops

I've add a redlink in the "see also" section to an article-to-be about the B&O shops in Martinsburg, WV. While I don't have the resources to write this article, I believe it is a deserving topic due to the shops' status as a National Historic Landmark. Just a suggestion in case anybody wants to take it on. -Ipoellet 05:22, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

The Royal Blue

This was certainly a notable B&O train that ran between Wash.-NY 1895-1958, so I've added it to the Named Trains list and will start an article on it soon.

On the other hand, is the "President Express" valid? I don't see any mention of it in any book about the B&O or in the Official Guide, so I'll go ahead and delete it. JGHowes ^talk - 17:57, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

Section 1863-1865

This sounds extremely bias to me, and it's the only section I read. I assume that the entirety of the article is bias because of this. 65.199.113.40 (talk) 09:59, 2 December 2008 (UTC)

Frederick Branch

Two references (Dilts and Harwood) state that the B&O had no intention of building the main line directly to Frederick, preferring to take advantage of a valley grade to the south. I will revise this section accordingly, unless a reference can be provided for the current assertion that "the city of Frederick would not pay the B&O the cost of routing the railroad through the rougher terrain into downtown Frederick." Caseyjonz (talk) 06:28, 2 February 2010 (UTC)

Paragraph revised as per above comment. Caseyjonz (talk) 04:42, 7 April 2010 (UTC)

Chronological Layout

I've been looking over this article, and it strikes me as confusingly laid out. I think it would make much more sense if it were organized chronologically, like the page for the Pennsy. I think that's much more readable, and I'd like to get the B&O to that state. Would anyone object to me reorganizing things, not adding or deleting any content? RMMCP (talk) 18:07, 22 October 2012 (UTC)— Preceding unsigned comment added by RMMCP (talk • contribs) 18:05, 22 October 2012 (UTC)

A chronological approach would be OK for most of the text, with some exceptions. There are some sections which discuss topics spanning across the chronology, e.g. "Early engineering" and "Conflicts in the early years." Those should be retained. The section on Branches is a geographic description of the system--although at present it's a very limited description of only a few branches--but it should be kept as well. (However, it currently has no internal order. It could be internally organized by geography and/or chronologically.) "New lines in Maryland" is a chronology within a geographic focus, and in particular it's describing the oldest part of the B&O system. I don't recommend breaking up that section and weaving it into a larger overall chronology. It is a more effective chapter in its current form. Caseyjonz (talk) 01:20, 23 October 2012 (UTC)

I'm just thinking out loud, so feel free to disagree, but I think "New Lines in Maryland" and "20th Century" could stand to be folded into the history section. "New Lines" has its geographic focus, but it's also fairly contained chronologically, and wouldn't have to be broken up much or at all to fit in a larger timeline. Right now those two are under "Conflicts in the Early Years," and I think they'd be better off under "History."

For the branch section, mostly they're just serving as placemarks for links to dedicated articles about each branch. What if integrated them with when each branch was established and dropped the dedicated section? My main goal is to lay things out so that a reader could easily grasp the rise and fall of the B&O. I realize that might not be the best course of action, though. I'll tinker with it in my sandbox and then maybe show an example of what I'm thinking.RMMCP (talk) 17:30, 23 October 2012 (UTC)

Copyright problems

Much of the current history section was lifted word-for-word from Drury, George H. (1994). The Historical Guide to North American Railroads: Histories, Figures, and Features of more than 160 Railroads Abandoned or Merged since 1930. Waukesha, Wisconsin: Kalmbach Publishing. pp. 35–40. ISBN 0-89024-072-8 by Oanabay04 (talk · contribs). This occurred in 2013; see especially [1]. This article is one of many affected articles (see Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Trains#Major_copyright_problem for discussion) but given the relative size of this article and the number of intervening edits there may not be a quick fix. Special:Diff/540856696 is the last clean version; it might be possible to simply build on that. Mackensen (talk) 04:24, 22 August 2015 (UTC)

Thank you, Mackensen, for leaving such clear notes of your findings here - well, actually, thank you for the great job you have done all round in identifying and dealing with this problem. I've reverted the page to version 540856696, a possibility you suggested and a standard way of dealing with a case like this one. Unfortunately that means that a hundred or more good-faith edits have gone to waste or need to be redone. I'm sorry about that, but could see no reasonable alternative. Justlettersandnumbers (talk) 22:56, 14 September 2015 (UTC)

Copyright problem removed

This article has been revised as part of a large-scale clean-up project of multiple article copyright infringement. (See the investigation subpage.) Prior content in this article duplicated one or more previously published sources. The material was copied from: The Historical Guide to North American Railroads: Histories, Figures, and Features of more than 160 Railroads Abandoned or Merged since 1930 by George H. Drury. Copied or closely paraphrased material has been rewritten or removed and must not be restored, unless it is duly released under a compatible license. (For more information, please see "using copyrighted works from others" if you are not the copyright holder of this material, or "donating copyrighted materials" if you are.)

For legal reasons, we cannot accept copyrighted text or images borrowed from other web sites or published material; such additions will be deleted. Contributors may use copyrighted publications as a source of information, and, if allowed under fair use, may copy sentences and phrases, provided they are included in quotation marks and referenced properly. The material may also be rewritten, providing it does not infringe on the copyright of the original or plagiarize from that source. Therefore, such paraphrased portions must provide their source. Please see our guideline on non-free text for how to properly implement limited quotations of copyrighted text. Wikipedia takes copyright violations very seriously, and persistent violators will be blocked from editing. While we appreciate contributions, we must require all contributors to understand and comply with these policies. Thank you. Justlettersandnumbers (talk) 22:56, 14 September 2015 (UTC)

This article needs more footnotes

There are numerous paragraphs throughout the article that have no citations whatsoever. Specifically, in the following sections:

• Early engineering
• Civil War period
• 1861–1862
• 1863–1865
• Westward by merger
• New lines in Maryland
• The 20th century
• Branches

Thanks. —howcheng {chat} 03:58, 22 May 2017 (UTC)

I noticed it too, but don't know when I'll have the time to fix it, especially since now I don't even have access to the Gordon multi-railroad book from 1998. I'm trying to slog through the lawyers representing various railroads before and after the Civil War, and may be able to fix that for John Work Garrett some more in the relatively near future. For what it's worth, I didn't find a decent B&O history in various Virginia local libraries last fall, and don't know when I'll be able to visit the Enoch Pratt library in Baltimore. BTW, I love the images in this article and hope you or someone can find some Civil War images. Jweaver28 (talk) 23:22, 20 January 2019 (UTC)

Also check out the Wiki article on Jackson's Operations against the B&O. Please note the indications that the "great raid" may be a Lost Cause myth that has been repeated in several Jackson biographies. It may warrant removing the tally of rolling stock supposedly captured. Hhfjbaker (talk) 02:19, 2 November 2021 (UTC)

Missing

What is missing from this article is any discussion of why the B&O had two or more depots in Baltimore and their role in providing passenger transportation to many locations, not only just in Maryland. A lot is missing, in other words.98.140.79.183 (talk) — Preceding undated comment added 19:43, 11 April 2019 (UTC)

Bassaleg Viaduct

"Carrollton Viaduct ... the world's second-oldest railroad bridge still carrying trains". Does being an actual (multi-arch) viaduct disqualify the Bassaleg Viaduct (1826)? --Verbarson ^talk_edits 19:16, 23 March 2022 (UTC)

Checking List of railway bridges and viaducts in the United Kingdom, none of those before 1825 claim to be still operational, and the next one after Bassaleg Viaduct is 1930, so unless either (i) an undated entry turns out to be earlier, or (ii) another earlier UK bridge is found, or (iii) an earlier non-UK example turns up (and I assume that US railroaders would have spotted any US examples), then Carrollton Viaduct can claim to be the third-oldest operational railway bridge/viaduct. I think that's a fairly safe claim. Any objections? --Verbarson ^talk_edits 21:31, 23 March 2022 (UTC)

Second sentence

Regarding my recent edit to the lede section, reverted by Deisenbe: The following sentence, which is the 2nd one in the article, is problematic:

"Merchants from the city of Baltimore, which had benefited to some extent from the construction of the National Road early in the century, wanted to continue to compete for trade with trans-Appalachian settlers with the Albany-Schenectady Turnpike built in 1797, and the newly constructed Erie Canal, opened in 1825, (both of which served New York City), another canal being proposed by Pennsylvania (which would have connected Philadelphia and Pittsburgh), the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal (C&O, which connected to the nation's capital, Washington, D.C., although it never reached Ohio), and the James River Canal, which directed traffic toward Richmond and Norfolk, Virginia."

The problem, in a word, is that it is virtually unreadable. If it appeared somewhere deep in the article, it would not be quite so worrisome. But in its prominent position at the very beginning of the article, it needs to be revised. It is excessively long and stuffed with too much detail of relatively secondary importance; it shows every sign of having been written by committee, a vulnerability faced by all articles on the site, crowd-sourced as it is. Take, for example, the text, "trade with trans-Appalachian settlers with the Albany-Schenectady Turnpike..." After reading that part of the sentence multiple times, I finally understood the two uses of "with", which appear so close to one another. The B&O wants to compete for trade with the settlers, and it wants to compete against all those listed alternate transportation enterprises. Next problem: the use of multiple parenthetical phrases (three, to be exact) in that single sentence is distracting and unnecessary. If so much information is important, it should be incorporated directly into the text, without parenthetical crutches. However, all those tangential bits of information do not need to be explained upfront in the lede, and certainly not in the 2nd sentence, where they serve only to derail the reader, who is forced to slog through them to reach the more significant information. The entire concept can be made far more readable by saying:

"Merchants from the city of Baltimore, which had benefited to some extent from the construction of the National Road early in the century, wanted to do business with settlers crossing the Appalachian Mountains. The railroad founders faced competition from several existing and proposed enterprises, including the Albany-Schenectady Turnpike, built in 1797, the Erie Canal, opened in 1825, and the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal."

The other competitors can be mentioned in an appropriate location in the body of the article; they are not essential to the lede. Next, consider the phrase "trans-Appalachian settlers". It is needlessly confusing and (for lack of a better term) technocratic. Let's clearly describe what the settlers are doing: they are crossing the mountains.

Some of my edits were to maintain continuity in the lede after relocation and changes to the 2nd sentence. In the last paragraph I changed "immortality" to "fame" as a more appropriate description, and I modified the last sentence to be a little more formal. In this Talk post, I am offering a simple way to fix the second sentence by maintaining its location and dividing it into two sentences while removing some of its unneeded, distracting and minor detail. I look forward to an early reply. DonFB (talk) 20:55, 27 April 2022 (UTC)

I have no problem with any of your edits, the problem was flow of ideas. deisenbe (talk) 23:32, 27 April 2022 (UTC)

Ok, good. I take it then that you do not object to my dividing the sentence and the proposed wording in each. I also will restore my changes to the last paragraph, as you seem not to object. DonFB (talk) 23:48, 27 April 2022 (UTC)

Enslaved cargo on the railroad

Something that belongs here somewhere is that the railroad wanted to connect to the Ohio River and to the developing Mississippi River part of the country. And a main cargo item was slaves. Maryland and Virginia bred them, like they were breeding pigs, and sold the children to Mississippi (Natchez) and Louisiana. Well documented. And a key piece of cargo for the B&O. deisenbe (talk) 11:23, 28 April 2022 (UTC)

Railroad-name format for trains

At B&O Railroad Museum, there is a mix of "Baltimore and Ohio", "Baltimore & Ohio", and "B&O". The railroad itself is Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, whose lead sentence states "The Baltimore and Ohio Railroad (reporting marks B&O, BO)..." and the museum's website calls itself "B&O Railroad Museum". How should we refer to individual trains or cars of this railroad? Right now we are not even consistent:

• Car: Baltimore & Ohio GP30 #6944
• Nicknamed locomotive: Baltimore and Ohio 0-4-0 "Grasshopper"
• Nicknamed car: Baltimore & Ohio 4-6-0 #147 "Thatcher Perkins"
• Named train: B&O Royal Blue Line

What format should we use in what context? DMacks (talk) 20:41, 10 September 2022 (UTC)

Years ago, there was an agreement to phase out use of the ampersand for titles of train related articles. B&O Railroad Museum is an exception since the formal title uses the ampersand. Reporting marks are codes assigned to railroads, and they are immune from any sort of conventions (though I do not see any evidence "B&O" has been used as a reporting mark, I don't think reporting marks can contain anything besides letters). In general, it comes down to whatever convention editors agree upon, and there can be more than one right answer, and/or multiple terms used in different places.

For instance, the New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad can be referred to as the NYNY&H, but is commonly known simply as "The New Haven". Using either term is correct. CSX Transportation can be abbreviated as CSX or CSXT (the latter is also the company's reporting mark). In short, I don't really see an issue here. Trainsandotherthings (talk) 21:06, 10 September 2022 (UTC)

I'm just concerned about inconsistency within one article itself (as with other types of Wikipedia:Consistency aspects). Since there are so many similar railroad names for various reasons, I think in this particular area it's needless risk of confusion to mix'n'match. Obviously when somethning is a proper name, we use it as-is (the name of the railroad, or the name of the museum). DMacks (talk) 21:09, 10 September 2022 (UTC)

On the list of issues with this article, which unfortunately is quite long, I'd rank consistency fairly low. It's on my watchlist as a reminder to rewrite it one day (and also to keep it from getting any worse). I don't see anything within WP:CONSISTENCY which specifically addresses this. With that said, I'd agree that it's best practice to be consistent, and in articles I write, most of which are about southern New England and inevitably involve the New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad at some point, I consistently use "The New Haven" to prevent issues with alternate names all over the place. At the same time, I did alternate between "New Haven and Northampton" and "The Canal Line" (a common nickname, as the railroad was built along a former canal) at New Haven and Northampton Railroad. I find that alternation, when done properly, makes for better prose than simply using the exact same name many times in a row.

So, for this article, I would find it acceptable if both "Baltimore and Ohio (or Baltimore & Ohio)" and "B&O" are used as synonyms throughout the article. But I do see merit in picking either "and" or "&" and sticking with one. One of the longest articles I've written, Providence and Worcester Railroad, exclusively uses the wording "Providence and Worcester" over "Providence & Worcester" throughout the prose, though the abbreviation P&W is also frequently used. Trainsandotherthings (talk) 21:23, 10 September 2022 (UTC)

No question that article as a whole needs work. I just noticed this "low fruit" while fixing other things that were getting worse or not-better along the way. I'm totally looking at best-practice or other guideline from relevant wikiproject (if there were an actual site-guideline, I'd just apply it without a second thought). DMacks (talk) 23:40, 11 September 2022 (UTC)

Geography mistakes

Will someone please correct the geography references? Specifically, Wheeling is in West Virginia and not in Virginia. There are other mistakes of this kind elsewhere on the page. 192.181.182.15 (talk) 17:06, 29 January 2023 (UTC)

Keep in mind the B&O was built well before the Civil War. At the time, Wheeling was part of Virginia. I've added a note of this at the first mention of "Wheeling, Virginia". This article is not protected, so you can easily fix any other mistakes yourself. Trainsandotherthings (talk) 22:59, 29 January 2023 (UTC)

A Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for speedy deletion

The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for speedy deletion:

• CSXT1827 Baltimore heritage unit.jpg

You can see the reason for deletion at the file description page linked above. —Community Tech bot (talk) 21:23, 11 May 2023 (UTC)

I just removed the discord photo from the sub-article on heritage units in the note. @LuisCanelo.MJ my advice, do not take it badly, if not so that you can do well here in the Wikipedia community, is that next time you upload your own photographic material or at least if you upload material from other authors, try to ask authorization to the author, OK? Greetings. Leito.Cmj (talk) 23:43, 11 May 2023 (UTC)

Hello @Community Tech bot and @Leito.Cmj, thank you very much for the notice. I am grateful that they have notified me and yes, I made a big mistake but it is not a total fall if not a stumble and next time I will talk to the authors to request the corresponding permissions to share their photos. Many greetings. LuisCanelo.MJ (talk) 00:39, 12 May 2023 (UTC)

Lead Unreferenced

The entire lead is unreferenced in this article. It's fairly well-written, though borderline too long for a lead, but the first citation doesn't even pop up until midway through the history section. Lindsey40186 (talk) 16:50, 2 November 2023 (UTC)

That seems in keeping with WP:LEDE guideline, where the lead summarizes the article but neither adds new information itself nor has its own cites. DMacks (talk) 18:54, 2 November 2023 (UTC)

My thoughts are the same as those of DMacks. There is not a problem to be "fixed" here. Trainsandotherthings (talk) 23:24, 2 November 2023 (UTC)

Per everyone else, this generally isn't a problem unless the lead introduces new information without citations. XtraJovial (talk • contribs) 19:27, 7 November 2023 (UTC)