Norfolk & Western to Portsmouth - Norfolk Southern, Cincinnati District, Lake Division (Peavine) - Cincinnati Eastern Railroad
Former Cincinnati & Eastern/Cincinnati, Portsmouth & Virginia/Norfolk & Western to Portsmouth
Narrow gauge (3'-0") line opened in stages between 1876 and 1882, converted to standard gauge in 1887
Downtown terminal: Court Street Station (E. Court & Reedy Streets)
In limited local use (no through traffic) east of Clare Yard, abandoned west of Clare on September 10, 2009
(The following write-up is adapted from the website Abandoned)
The Cincinnati & Eastern Railway (C&E) was a narrow gauge (3'-0") railroad from Idlewild near Xavier University to Portsmouth, Ohio. The C&E was chartered as the Cincinnati, Batavia & Williamsburg by Samuel Woodward on January 11, 1876, but the name was changed to the Cincinnati & Eastern Railway and the route was extended to Portsmouth in May. Nicknamed the Peavine due to its difficult hills and curvature, it was projected to carry coal from Jackson County west to the Cincinnati market and points in between. Construction began almost immediately after the railroad was renamed. On October 18, 1876, service began from Batavia Junction (now called Clare) at the Little Miami Railroad below what is today Mariemont, to Batavia, a distance of 15 miles where the company headquarters were located. By August 4, 1877, the railroad had reached Winchester, a distance of 48 miles. On March 1, 1878, the C&E opened the first 5 miles of a branch to New Richmond from Richmond Junction in Newtown to Tobasco, at the current intersection of Beechmont Avenue and I-275. In June, a 5.5-mile western extension to the Miami Valley Railroad, later the Cincinnati, Lebanon & Northern (CL&N) at Idlewild, was completed and dubbed the Hyde Park Branch. The original Miami Valley Railroad promised a narrow-gauge connection through the Deer Creek Valley to their downtown Court Street terminal via the never-completed deep level Deer Creek Tunnel (Idlewild Junction is just a short distance from the north portal of the incomplete tunnel at I-71 and Blair Avenue). When the Deer Creek tunnel project ran into financial difficulties, the C&E found that its connection to Cincinnati was completely useless. The railroad soon went into receivership on January 27, 1879 due to failures to collect stock subscriptions.
During receivership, little work was completed along the C&E. The branch line had been extended to Blairville, a distance of 11 miles, in 1879, and it was completed to New Richmond on March 1, 1880, a distance of 14 miles. The branch had a connection with the Cincinnati, Georgetown and Portsmouth (CG&P) at Tobasco Junction on the border of Hamilton and Clermont Counties at Clough Pike. At a meeting on November 21, 1880 the shareholders voted to increase the capital stock from $500,000 to $2 million, and to authorize a bond issue to connect the railroad to Portsmouth and beyond to Gallipolis. In February 1882, the C&E signed a contract with the Cincinnati Northern to utilize its 3.81 miles of track from Idlewild to Court Street via the Deer Creek valley after new tunnels (unrelated to the original Deer Creek Tunnel) were completed. On April 4, 1882, the C&E began operations from Court Street, with one train running to Irvington, 62.2 miles from Cincinnati, another to Winchester, and two to New Richmond. By the end of 1882, the C&E had reached Peebles, 72 miles from Cincinnati's Court Street depot. In May 1883, the railroad had reached Rarden, and Henley in late July. On September 14, the C&E went into receivership again. Nevertheless, it was finally completed to Portsmouth in August 1884, with a 1,000-foot truss bridge over the Scioto River as its centerpiece.
Almost immediately after the completion to Portsmouth, the C&E began preparations for conversion of the line to standard gauge. The difficulty of interchanging with standard gauge railroads and the modest to non-existent cost savings from the smaller track and equipment had exposed narrow gauge railroads as merely a fad. In the time it took to complete the route, the tracks west of Winchester had deteriorated, causing slowdowns and a loss of revenue. The C&E could not shake off receivership, and in February 1885, another receiver was appointed to the railroad. By May 1885, the C&E east of Winchester was converted to standard gauge, however, no money was appropriated for standard gauge cars. The court then authorized $180,000 to convert the western front to standard gauge, but an accident on August 8, 1885 stalled the project. The 800-foot long Nineveh trestle at what is today Nine Mile-Tobasco and Bradbury Roads on the New Richmond Division collapsed, killing three and injuring nine. The disaster greatly aggravated the company's financial difficulties, started talks of abandoning the branch to New Richmond, and led to another receiver being appointed. This receiver, however, felt it was necessary to reconvert the standard gauge from Winchester to Portsmouth back to narrow gauge to get the line fully operable and to generate a profit. By early 1886, the C&E was once again narrow gauge.
On September 1, 1886, the railroad was sold to a representative of the Cincinnati, Hamilton & Dayton (CH&D), however it defaulted on payments and the railroad was resold on January 5, 1887 to H.B. Morehead, who formed the Ohio & Northwestern Railroad. The New Richmond Division was sold on September 1, 1886 to William P. DeVou, who organized it as the Cincinnati, New Richmond & Ohio River Railroad. He planned to extend the railroad to Aberdeen. However, by July 1889, the branch line ceased operations and it was dismantled in 1898.
The Columbus & Maysville (C&M) was incorporated on April 27, 1877 and was proposed between its namesake cities via Washington Court House, Hillsboro, Sardinia, Georgetown, Ripley, and Aberdeen. Construction began on the 19-mile Hillsboro segment in 1878 with narrow gauge tracks to conform with the C&E. About 12 miles were completed from Sardinia north in 1878, and another 5.5 miles were laid in 1879 to the junction of the standard gauge Marietta & Cincinnati, about 1.5 miles west of Hillsboro. The first official run was on May 8, 1879, and the line was leased to the C&E. Local parties in 1880 formed the Hillsboro Railroad Company and constructed the Hillsboro Short Line to bring the railroad further into town, and they leased it to the C&M. On May 25, 1880, the C&M resolved to convert the railroad to standard gauge and to extend the line to Aberdeen. No work was completed on either task. The route between Sardinia and Aberdeen was partially constructed by a separate entity, the Ohio River & Columbus Railroad, at a later date (see the CG&P history for more information). The C&M was sold in 1885 to an eastern group. The new company reported that the railroad had been extended to Ripley, however, it in fact had not. It became insolvent and was sold on February 12, 1887 to the Ohio & Northwestern (O&NW), which had been chartered one week prior.
The O&NW moved immediately to standard gauge the
main line from Cincinnati to Portsmouth, completing the task in November
1887. The O&NW also temporarily shifted its western connection to the Little Miami Railroad as a standard gauge entry into Cincinnati, since the CL&N
was still narrow gauge. The trackage rights proved prohibitively
expensive, and operations to the CL&N Court Street
Station resumed after dual gauge tracks were added between Court Street and
Idlewild. The O&NW became insolvent rather quickly, however, and it
went into receivership on June 15, 1888. In February 1889, under
receivership, the railroad completed five miles of the long-projected
Gallipolis extension from Portsmouth to Sciotoville. The O&NW was
sold on March 13, 1890, which was reorganized as the Cincinnati,
Portsmouth & Virginia Railroad (CP&V) on June 24, 1891. The
C&M was sold separately on May 5, 1890, however, the CP&V was
unwilling to resume the lease on the line, but continued to operate over
it informally. Fearing abandonment, Hillsboro formed the Hillsboro
Railroad, which assumed the lease and began to operate over it as a
short line.
The waning years of the 19th century and first few of
the 20th century saw much activity in Batavia. The original wooden
station building from the 1870s was replaced with a new brick building
in 1896. Work also began on the new Maywood cutoff east of town,
which would bypass the old Greggs Hill route that had the steepest grade
on the railroad at nearly 2%. This new bypass, which took 18 months to build, reduced the
grade to 1%, greatly easing heavy freight operations. The original
320-foot wooden Howe truss bridge over East Fork in Batavia was also
replaced at roughly the same time with the steel plate girder bridge
that remains today.
In December 1900, the shareholders of the CP&V
voted to purchase the C&M and to allow the Hillsboro Railroad to
continue to lease the line. In October 1901, Norfolk & Western
(N&W) merged with the CP&V, which became the
Cincinnati-Portsmouth segment of the N&W. The Hillsboro Railroad
was purchased by the N&W on July 1, 1902
and it became the N&W Hillsboro branch.
Life under the powerful N&W was good, and as a
strong coal hauler, the line was prosperous through both world
wars. The flood of 1913 which crippled the Great Miami Valley did
not spare central Ohio, and the Scioto River bridge was destroyed.
Fortunately the N&W had the means to replace it without suffering
undue hardship. Coming off the heels of World War II the N&W made
some
significant upgrades to handle the traffic that was stressing this
single-track route though difficult terrain. Until this point the
railroad was operated with automatic block signals and strict adherence
to timetables and written orders. With anywhere from 20-30 trains per
day, including fast passenger trains
operating at 50-65 mph, and slow heavy freights, a new centralized
train control (CTC) system would markedly improve throughput and reduce
delays.
New signals and and a control machine at the dispatcher's office in
Portsmouth were installed in 1946-1947. Sidings were lengthened and two
new sidings were built west of Seaman at Mt. Zion to allow freight
trains that were split to climb the grade between Lawshe and
Seaman to be reassembled without tying up the mainline. Only the
northern Mt. Zion siding remains today. Additional sidings and
crossovers were installed in Newtown and Anchor to accommodate
significant
local switching operations. At the same time, the tracks were rerouted
around a new
gravel quarry at Plum Run east of Peebles. The original route followed
Beaver Pond and Jaybird Roads to approximately the confluence of
Jaybird Branch and Scioto Brush Creeks. The rerouted track takes a more
northerly route along Portsmouth Road and OH-73. The old
alignment wasn't torn up until 1959, and the two tracks were
operated like a double mainline or passing siding in the meantime.
Ohio Route 32 between Cincinnati and Belpre was built
in the 1960s by linking together a number of disparate roads into a four-lane divided highway. It was meant to
inject new life into declining rural southern Ohio. Scraped over
by glaciers, the soil in this area is not well suited to intensive
agriculture, and combined with the decline of the coal industry and
rural areas in general, it has led to economic stagnation and decline. While the new
highway spurred some industrial and commercial development, it mostly
shifted it away from other areas, including the N&W.
In 1982, the Norfolk & Western Railway consolidated with the Southern Railway to form the Norfolk Southern Corporation. The Hillsboro branch was still in operation as of 1984 however it has since been torn up, with a few hundred feet of wye tracks in Sardinia remaining. While the N&W in general was always a strong coal hauler, the twisty and slow Peavine was not well suited to long haul shipments, and as most industries switched away from coal, maintaining a connection through the rough terrain east of Peebles to Portsmouth and the declining Jackson County coalfields became untenable. The focus shifted to intermodal transfer of agricultural products and gravel, and through traffic east of Plum Run was discontinued in 2003 due to structural problems with the Scioto River bridge and a lack of online customers.
Local trains serving the remaining customers are routed over the former PRR Richmond Division through Fairfax to Clare, which was the main classification and maintenance yard. A few short trains still served the small Idlewild yard at Montgomery Road and Lexington Avenue in Norwood until all customers were shifted to Clare, and the Hyde Park branch was closed to traffic on September 10, 2009. The last train ran on August 28 of that year, and the Wasson Way bike path has been built on the land between Montgomery Road and the Red Bank trestle. Even before closing of the Hyde Park branch, most traffic was east of Clare anyway. The operational limits of this railroad have changed frequently, but as of July 2024 the situation is as follows. Starting on April 28, 2014, a new operator, the Cincinnati East Terminal Railway (CCET), subsidiary of Homestead Rail Group, leased the line from Norfolk Southern to provide three runs per week between Clare and Williamsburg. In 2018 CCET was renamed the Cincinnati Eastern Railroad, a nod to the original name of the company from nearly 150 years ago. On July 3, 2024 Cincinnati Eastern was acquired by Regional Rail, LLC, which is owned by 3i RR Holdings GP, LLC, the US subsidiary of 3i Group plc, a British multinational private equity and venture capital company. Service is provided as far east as the quarry at Plum Run (Hanson Aggregates/Lehigh Hanson/Heidelberg Materials), which has been the effective eastern limit of operable track since the elimination of through running in 2003. While the end of active track is technically just west of Jaybird Road, it is only used for car storage east of Plum Run. As a customer, the quarry has historically only provided gravel for the railroad's own use, rather than shipping it to other customers. However, to help reduce heavy gravel truck traffic on OH-32, Hanson built a new transload yard on Roundbottom Road near Milford with an unloading pit and conveyor on the main line track. Limited operations began in October, 2021 with the grand opening in June 2022. Ohio Mulch is building a new facility next to the Hanson transload property, and an industrial spur to the new Nestlé Purina pet food plant east of Batavia is being built as well. Prior to regaining Hanson's business, Winchester Agricultural Services was often the easternmost customer, though they had apparently stopped using the railroad at times in the past, hence the initial 2014 service only going as far as Williamsburg. The Huhtamaki packaging plant east of Batavia, formerly Ford's Batavia Transmission factory, is still their biggest customer, with about a dozen total customers along the route.
The rest of the line from Jaybird
to Portsmouth is railbanked, with some washouts along the way, and the
1913 Scioto River bridge needing major repairs. NS has removed the
switch at Vera Junction in Portsmouth next to the Scioto River and
US-23. The CPL signals along the route are still in place, but even on
the operating part of the line they have been turned off and are covered
in plastic. Round Bottom and Binning Roads closely parallel the tracks
from Newtown to Stonelick, and in many places, the old utility poles and
scruffy nature of the right of way makes for an interesting glimpse at
what the railroad looked like in the past. The future of this stretch of
railroad hangs in the balance, but its abandonment would leave a huge
area of southern Ohio without any railroad whatsoever, and Norfolk
Southern is unwilling to let it go. Cincinnati Eastern Railroad should be commended for
bringing in new customers and keeping the rail service alive through
this part of the state. With the CG&P, O&NW, and most of the
CL&N gone, the Peavine is the only relatively complete remnant of
the narrow gauge railroad network left in southwest Ohio.
Main Line Photographs from Norwood to McDermott
New Richmond Branch Photographs from Newtown to New Richmond