The Sportsman was a named passenger night train of the Chesapeake and Ohio Railway. It was the Chesapeake and Ohio's long-standing train bound for Detroit from Washington, D.C., and Phoebus, Virginia, on the Chesapeake Bay, opposite Norfolk, Virginia. It was unique among C&O trains for its route north from the C&O mainline in southern Ohio. For most of its years it had a secondary western terminus in Louisville at its Central Station.
Sportsman one-time logo in 1948 C&O timetable
Chesapeake and Ohio Railway
The Chesapeake and Ohio Railway was a Class I railroad formed in 1869 in Virginia from several smaller Virginia railroads begun in the 19th century. Led by industrialist Collis P. Huntington, it reached from Virginia's capital city of Richmond to the Ohio River by 1873, where the railroad town of Huntington, West Virginia, was named for him.
The original Blue Ridge Tunnel built by the Blue Ridge Railroad and used by the C&O until its replacement during World War II
Coal cars at the Danville, West Virginia, yard in 1974
Postcard showing the Chesapeake and Ohio Terminal in Newport News, c. 1930–1945
The Chesapeake and Ohio's Sportsman at Alexandria, VA in August 1964.