B&AC 'History'

The Bluefield and Allegheny Central History Page

1853-1860  The Bluefield and Allegheny Central Railroad Was first founded in 1853 by Henry Emerson Beaverage as the Terminus and Central Railway Company.  It was a railroad on paper mostly, as construction was difficult in the mountains. The first train ran between Terminus and Midvale in 1858. The line was quickly expanded south as well to some small communities in southern West Virginia. It ran with one locomotive, The William R. Emerson for years until the railroad was finally able to buy 2 more in 1860.  The William R. Emerson was a wood burner, but the second 2 were coal burners. The William R. Emerson has been saved and is on display in Terminus.  The name was used again on a combine that was part of the Bluefield Flyer consist.

1860s-1880s  When the N&W made the town of Bluefield their headquarters, The Terminus and Central was quick to make a connection.  This was to the be the start of a great partnership which would move coal to the N&W for trains east and west, putting the Terminus Central Railway company in position for success. All was not well in paradise yet, however.  The Railroad's founder and president, Henry E. Beaverage was growing increasingly eccentric and had fallen ill. That lead to bad business decisions and unrestricted spending and the TC went into receivership in the 1880s. Norfolk and Western bought a controlling interest in TC stock, bailing it out and reorganizing it as the Bluefield and Allegheny Central Railroad.

1890s-early 1900s  As the Bluefield and Allegheny Central Railroad, things began to look up for the company.  The railroad started funneling coal from mines near Terminus and Midvale, southbound to Bluefield to be transported via the Norfolk and Western, east to ports at Lambert's Point. Founder and longtime president of the road, Henry E. Beaverage died of tuberculosis in 1891, freeing the railroad from it's increasingly eccentric founder.  The new management consisted of a former N&W division superintendent Thomas Hammercliffe as President and Charles P. Orange as vice president.  Hammercliffe was a railroaders railroader, and knew the ins and outs of railroad operations.  He was able to streamline the line to run like a Swiss watch, allowing The Bluefield to once again become independent from the N&W, although still very much intertwined on a business level.  It was vice president Orange, however, who was the more ambitious of the two, pushing for northward expansion.  Hammercliffe went along with Orange's ideas to a point, but being more organized and cautious in nature feared that quick expansion without significant growth in overhead could cause the railroad to once again fail.  Hammercliffe agreed to expand the railroad as far north as Mount Frigid. 

More to come soon. Stay tuned.