Greenbrier & Eastern RR Co.: Interstate Commerce ...

This pamphlet reproduces the summary report prepared by the Interstate Commerce Commission in 1917 giving a history and data on the Greenbrier & Eastern Railroad Co.

The G&E was built to join the Sewell Valley Railroad. The two were later consolidated and became the Nicholas, Fayette & Greenbrier Railroad, which was jointly controlled and operated by C&O and New York Central, tapping the Greenbrier coal fields and transporting lumber from the Meadow River Lumber Co. at Rainelle, WVa.

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.