When the association between the Chesapeake and Ohio (C&O) and the Baltimore and Ohio (B&O) grew into successful, integrated system, there was a need to name it something. The story of this success is about the C&O and B&O maintaining their separate corporate identities and growing together, successful without a legal merger. People then branded it with the most enduring symbol of railroad history – Chessie the Sleeping Kitten.
The C&O-B&O and the Cuban Missile Crisis
The most dangerous crisis of the Cold War could have weighed on the C&O-B&O decision. On October 22, 1962, President Kennedy revealed to the world that the Soviets were busy building missile bases on Cuba (link). On that day many Americans thought that by the next day they would be at war with the Soviet…