Vintage C&O Chesapeake and Ohio Railroad Passenger Train Dining Car Food Service 4 Beverage Stirrers, dark blue sturdy Plastic. Mint. Raised goldstone Lettering on each beverage stirrer. See pics for details. Great items for collector of railroadiana memorabilia.

he Chesapeake and Ohio Railway (reporting marks C&O, CO) was a Class I railroad formed in 1869 in Virginia from several smaller Virginia railroads begun in the 19th century. Led by industrialist Collis P. Huntington, it reached from Virginia's capital city of Richmond to the Ohio River by 1873, where the railroad town (and later city) of Huntington, West Virginia was named for him.

By the early 1960s the C&O was headquartered in Cleveland, Ohio, USA. by May 1967 C&O/B&O Passenger Department supervision and headquarters staff were well integrated, but C&O employees still manned and maintained C&O trains and equipment, while B&O personnel did the same on that road. One could still detect differences in the passenger services of the two roads. C&O's focus remained on serving the upscale West Virginia and Virginia resorts. Elsewhere, its once popular Pere Marquette services were in steep decline as construction of the Interstates progressed across Michigan. Meanwhile, B&O still fielded a fleet of overnight long-distance services, short hauls, and commuter runs. There was also a contrast in the dining car services of the two roads. C&O's Superintendent of Passenger Food Service, Ken Cox, was a proponent of modern institutional food service technology, while B&O's recently retired Manager of Passenger Food Service, Jim Martin, had been more traditional in his thinking.

In 1972, under the leadership of Cyrus Eaton, it became part of the Chessie System, along with the Baltimore and Ohio and Western Maryland Railway. The Chessie System was later combined with the Seaboard Coast Line and Louisville and Nashville, both the primary components of the Family Lines System, to become a key portion of CSX Transportation (CSXT) in the 1980s. A substantial portion of Conrail was added in 1999.

C&O's passenger services ended in 1971 with the formation of Amtrak.