Chesapeake & Ohio Historical Society Provides Archival Data to Durbin & Greenbrier Valley Railroad for Historical Restoration at Cass Scenic Railroad   Clifton Forge, VA (May 5, 2020) - n a historical partnership with the Durbin & Greenbrier Valley Railroad in West Virginia, the Chesapeake & Ohio Historical Society is excited to jointly announce the restoration of Cass Scenic Railroad caboose No. 50 to Chesapeake & Ohio caboose No. 90788, the vintage caboose’s original late 1950s Chesapeake & Ohio Railway livery. The Durbin & Greenbrier Valley Railroad partnered with the Chesapeake & Ohio Historical Society for this project because of the wealth of information in the Clifton Forge, Virginia-based group’s extensive archive. The 51-year-old historical society provided drawings and other important details from start to finish for use by D&GV’s restoration professionals in West Virginia. As a 501(c)(3) a non-profit organization dedicated to interpreting the American Railway experience using the C&O Railway’s history through drawings, documents, and artifacts which the Society collects, preserves, and makes available to as broad an audience as possible, the collaboration with D&GV was an ideal mission. C&OHS Founder, Chairman, & President Emeritus Thomas W. Dixon, Jr. reacted to the project’s outcome with praise, “As a long-time C&O Railway historian, author, and founder of the C&O Historical Society, it was a moment of great pleasure and excitement when I first saw the restored C&O Caboose No. 90788. It is very difficult to get a restoration ‘just right,’ but the Durbin & Greenbrier Valley Railroad’s work in refurbishing and painting/lettering this car is simply superb. Seeing it is a true trip back to 1956 Appalachian railroading! It is just the way it must have looked when it rolled out of C&O shops in its last paint scheme, ready for ten more years of work before being sold to Cass Scenic Railroad.â€� The C&OHS would like to thank long-time member Karen Parker for preparing a detailed package of paint and lettering data from the Society’s archive for use by the West Virginia scenic railroad’s craftsmen. The Durbin & Greenbrier Valley Railroad would like to recognize Pocahontas County, West Virginia artisan Eric Werner, who painted all lettering by hand and without stencils, DGVR’s Billy Cassell, and the entire DGVR track crew who prepped and painted the car. The K3-3 class caboose is of steel framing and wooden sheathing that was the standard for the C&O Railway when it was built in November 1924. The car is 32.5 feet long, weighs 40,300-lbs., and has a center cupola for trainmen to observe their train. The yellow painting and simplified lettering was adopted by the C&O for all its cabooses in 1956. It was part of a lot of 100 identical cars built for the C&O by Standard Steel Car Co. of Hammond, Indiana and numbered 90700 through 90799. Chesapeake & Ohio caboose No. 90788 was in general C&O and work-train service on the C&O’s Hinton Division until sold to the State of West Virginia for use at Cass Scenic Railroad in November 1966. Many similar C&O cabooses could be seen on the rear of trains as they rolled through Cass, West Virginia during the first decade of Cass Scenic Railroad excursions. For now, the restored Chesapeake & Ohio caboose No. 90788 will be on display in Cass, West Virginia. In the future, the historic piece will be in motion on the rails for photo specials on the former C&O Railway’s Greenbrier line in Pocahontas County, West Virginia. Photos to reference (available by email if not transmitted; more available upon request): • The newly-unveiled Chesapeake & Ohio caboose No. 90788, also known as Cass Scenic Railroad caboose No. 50, pauses by the wooden water tank at Cass that services West Virginia’s historic Shay, Heisler, and Climax geared locomotives synonymous with tourist rail in the state (Cab1_RossHarrison.JPG; Ross Harrison photo, courtesy of the Durbin & Greenbrier Valley Railroad). • Wearing a fresh coat of paint so it remains preserved for future generations, Chesapeake & Ohio caboose No. 90788 pauses on the rails at Cass, West Virginia (Cab2_RossHarrison.JPG; Ross Harrison photo, courtesy of the Durbin & Greenbrier Valley Railroad). • Chesapeake & Ohio caboose No. 90788 posed as part of a vintage mountain freight train by the C&O Railway depot at Cass, West Virginia (Cab3_Walter ScriptunasII; Walter Scriptunas II photo, courtesy of the Durbin & Greenbrier Valley Railroad). The Chesapeake & Ohio Historical Society is a non-profit corporation dedicated to interpreting the American Railway experience using C&O Railway’s history through drawings, documents, and artifacts which the Society collects, preserves, and makes available to as broad an audience as possible. The Chesapeake & Ohio Historical Society was organized in January 1969 and in 1975 was incorporated as a non-profit eleemosynary organization within the meaning or subparagraph 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code.

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