The Cincinnati and Eastern Railway (C&E), a railroad from Idlewild in Norwood, near Cincinnati, to Portsmouth, Ohio. At its western terminus, it connected with the Cincinnati, Lebanon and Northern (CL&N) and the Pennsylvania Railroad Richmond Division (PRR), and to a Norfolk & Western line at its eastern terminus.
The C&E was chartered as the Cincinnati, Batavia & Williamsburg on January 11, 1876, but the name was changed and the projected route was extended to Portsmouth in May. In October 1876, the line opened from Batavia Junction to Batavia, a distance of 15 miles. By August of next year, the railroad had reached Winchester, a distance of 48 miles.
In June, a 5.5-mile western extension to the Miami Valley Railroad, later the CL&N Idlewild, opened. It was constructed to the Miami Valley Railroad, who had promised a narrow-gauge connection via the Deer Creek valley to Cincinnati. When the Deer Creek tunnel project ran into financial difficulties, the C&E found that its connection to Cincinnati was completely useless for four years. The railroad went into receivership from January 1879 to 1881 due to failures to collect stock subscriptions.
At a meeting in November 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 1882, trackage rights were secured via the Deer Creek valley to Court Street in Cincinnati.
By the end of 1882, the C&E had reached Peebles, 72 miles from the Court Street depot. The railroad had reached Rarden by May 1883, Henley in late July and Portsmouth in 1884, which included a 1,000-foot truss bridge over the Scioto River.
The railroad was sold to the Cincinnati, Hamilton & Dayton (CH&D) in 1886, although it soon defaulted and sold to the Ohio & Northwestern Railroad (O&NW). The O&NW went into receivership shortly after, although the railroad completed five miles of the long-projected Gallipolis extension from Portsmouth to Sciotoville in 1889.
The O&NW reorganized under the Cincinnati, Portsmouth & Virginia Railroad (CP&V) in 1891, which merged with the Norfolk & Western (N&W) in October 1901.
In 1913, the Scioto River Bridge was replaced with a multi-span truss constructed by the American Bridge Company. Other trestle replacements included the construction of a girder span over Dry Run in 1941 by the Virginia Bridge Company. In 1947, the N&W east of Peebles to Jaybird via Jaybird Creek was realigned when a quarry opened along Plum Run that required the railroad to be rerouted to the north and east. It included a new trestle above Cedar Fork and several miles of new track.
In 1982, the N&W consolidated with the Southern Railway to form the Norfolk Southern Corporation, and the railroad became the Norfolk Southern (NS). The NS railbanked the line east of Peebles to Vera Junction at Portsmouth in 2003.
i film this railroad on the portsmouth ohio end and its very bad. check it out at paw95 is the channel on you tube
I was just home this past weekend on a visit and drove down the West side along the peavine on the west side of the Scioto River paralling the tracks. How odd it was to see the roadbed in it's still immaculate condition, completely weed free, and yet see rust on the top of the rails. You could also see where the grapevines were crossing between the trees over the tracks, partially blocking the area where a train would have easily torn it down in it's passing. Plainly nothing had gone down these tracks to allow such growth. It was also equally odd to see the old target signals still on their stands with peeling paint. The signal group used to keep those signals spic and span. Now they're clearly subject to the weather.
A true 'twightzone' experience for me. I expected to see a train coming round the bend at any time at Otway, but the rust on the rails told otherwise.
Sad.
Regards! Mark Cross, Tennessee
I wasn't aware that the N&W had railbanked the peavine until recently, me being born and raised in Portsmouth, and my folks being N&W people from the turn of the 20th century until the early 60's. I rode the peavine behind 611 on its second trip into P-town, getting off in Rardon. We were side tracked twice to make room for time freights coming up from Cincinnati (which i thought odd, considering what we were at the time).
So, this is extremely sad news to me, and I'm hoping the N&W decides to open the line again in the near future.
Regards! Mark Cross, Tennessee
I wish I could see this line in action. I'm learning so much about the rail history in Ohio now, and remember seeing the trestle at Vera on the way to the Dayton Airshow. I wonder why NS hasn't considered modifying it and running trains from the oncoming South Point intermodal facility to Cincinatti. Anyone have any videos of the track when it was running?
Yes Mike. I just posted one that I found actually on the Abandoned Facebook page:
You will enjoy this 1994 video of the Norfolk Western 611 as it pulled the final excursion over the Peavine Line from Cincinnati's Union Terminal eastward to Portsmouth and onward!
This is a sad site. I visit the peavine about ounce a week. I hope its never ripped up. I like the old infastructure of the system and the setting of it rolling through the hills. I have high-railred it from vera to peebles.It be aewsome to get to see the rest of it.
we still switch at peebles once a week, l51 ns
Steve, are you referring to that company (whose name I cannot recall at the moment) at Peebles at the end of the line?
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