Genealogy & Employee Records

The B&ORHS receives more requests for information regarding former B&O employees and their employment records than any other type of request. Unfortunately, the B&ORHS cannot provide information of this type, as there are no B&O Railroad employee records in the Society’s archives.

Background

B&O employee records from the 1800s and early 1900s generally disappeared over the years due to fires or housecleaning in B&O facilities. Later in the 1900s, problems in accessing former employee records were exacerbated by the transfer of many records to non-B&O locations, especially after the B&O merged with the Chesapeake & Ohio Railway in 1973 to form Chessie System. Many B&O records were transferred to the C&O’s offices in Huntington, West Virginia.

The situation worsened when both of these roads were absorbed by CSX Transportation in 1987. By this time, employee records had come under the protection of the Privacy Act, and any that may remain in CSX’s corporate archives have not been made available to organizations outside of CSX. CSX is the direct successor to the B&O and is the legal owner of any records that may remain. Past efforts by both the Society and the families of former employees to recover such records from CSX have failed. It is surmised that all records of employees not actively employed by the B&O at the time of its dissolution were considered unnecessary and thus were probably destroyed by CSX Transportation in 1987 or in the intervening decades.

Other Sources

Railroad Retirement Board - A possible source of data is the U.S. Railroad Retirement Board (RRB). The RRB may be able to provide information on a given employee, but the person you are researching must be deceased and must have worked for a railroad after 1936. The RRB charges a $21 fee for their research services. The RRB's site also contains links to other sites that may help you find information on employees who worked for railroads before 1936.

B&O Railroad Museum - Another possible source is the Hays T. Watkins Research Library at the B&O Railroad Museum in Baltimore, Maryland. They have several thousand individual service records of B&O employees from the B&O's Payroll Department. While these are not complete Personnel Department records, they are at least a starting point for researchers and they have often provided positive results. These records are microfilmed, and cover the period from 1905 to 1971. The B&O Railroad Museum charges for archival searches.

Good luck in your search!