C&O Railway of Indiana: Interstate Commerce Commission Summary

This pamphlet reproduces the summary report prepared by the Interstate Commerce Commission in 1916 giving a history and data on the Chesapeake & Ohio Railway of Indiana. This was a subsidiary company formed by C&O when it purchased the Chicago, Cincinnati & Louisville. It was eventually merged into the C&O, and the name and separate accounting was eliminated, and it became the Chicago Division.

Congress mandated a valuation of all American railroads in 1913 with the aim of fixing a value to their physical plants and rolling stock / motive power, so as to ensure that rate setting was fair and that the railroads were receiving adequate compensation for their capital expenditures, and at the same time to ensure that exorbitant rates were not being charged. This was the age in which railroads were essentially monopolies of transportation. The valuation for C&O was made in 1916.