Ironton Sililoquy

Caboose Rides

February 15, 1966

Written by Charles Collett

Submitted by: Robert Kingrey

Described as a "thrill ride" a group of Huntington citizens rode as paid passengers on a freight train caboose on the B & O Railway from Huntington to Point Pleasant last Saturday. Passenger train service between the two cities discontinued months ago was ordered restored by the Public Service Commission, so the railroad, lacking passenger coaches, placed benches in a caboose and called it a passenger train.

Well, that’s that, and my story is of 60 years ago when Irontonians rode in a coach at the end of a coal train, from this city to Wellston, and thought it high class service.

Not many readers today realize that Ironton had the first steam "choo-choo" trains in the Tri-State. The first steam locomotive was at Hanging Rock where the rails extended from the river up the valley to New Castle and just over the hills south of Pine Grove in 1846.

The Iron Railroad, from Ironton to Centre Furnace, was built in 1849. Many senior citizens today can recall conductor John (Joker) Hannon’s train that made two daily trips from the depot at Second and Railroad Streets to what is now known as Superior, serving communities known as LaGrange, Vesuvius, Pine Grove Crossing, Etna, Lawrence Furnace and Centre Station, a distance of 13 miles.

When the Detroit Southern took over the original Iron Railroad and started passenger service from Ironton to Springfield, Ohio, I rode the first train as a news reporter that left this city via Lisman Junction and Bloom Switch to connect with the B & O to Jackson. The date was June 2, 1902. However, that was a modern passenger train of that era and far different from "Joker" Hannon’s mixed train of coal cars and a coach that stopped at every crossroads where a woman or man waved a handkerchief.

The thrill on the old Iron Railroad train was the 1020-foot long tunnel, which is still in use today near Rogersville. This dark tunnel made it necessary for oil lamps in the coach where the passengers sat on hard board seats. From the end of the Civil War, until the N &W Railroad entered the city in 1881, every distinguished visitor, who came to the city, was given a treat by a thrill ride on the railroad that served the pig iron furnaces. The visitors all arrived in Ironton via regular scheduled passenger boats.

The society folks, young married couples and high school students rented a train of two coaches on Thanksgiving 1879 for amusement and the excursion, with more than 100 aboard, enjoyed a hot lunch served by Col. George Schachleiter at Little Etna. While the crew built the fire near the track, the merry crowd threw snowballs for amusement.

So it seems that after reading this, there is nothing new about the caboose ride on the end of a freight train in Huntington.