Martinsburg Story Archives - Page 10 of 25 - West Virginia Public Broadcasting

Proponents Say Railroad Deal Could Boost W.Va.'s Economy, Attract Jobs To Eastern Panhandle

Colorado-based OmniTRAX, a freight-only transportation company that links several railroads from coast to coast in the U.S., purchased the Winchester & Western Railroad for $105 million in September.

The railroad runs through part of West Virginia’s Eastern Panhandle, and the purchase is expected to improve West Virginia’s economy by attracting more businesses to the Eastern Panhandle.

The Winchester & Western Railroad has been around since 1916. It stretches from southern New Jersey, through Maryland, Virginia, and West Virginia’s Eastern Panhandle, covering about 100 miles.

Winchester & Western Railroad employee and Berkeley County native Eddie McKee said the interchange at Corning Way in Martinsburg is critical to the operation of the Winchester & Western.

“This is just about the center of the railroad, and the majority of our customers is right in this area, within five miles,” McKee said.

Two of those customers are the Argos cement plant and Procter & Gamble, both in Martinsburg.

McKee thinks OmniTRAX will increase the customer-base for the Winchester & Western Railroad, reaching more industrial companies that will rely on their rail service.

“Basically, it’s another company that we didn’t have, like Procter & Gamble. I mean, Procter & Gamble come here, brand new, OmniTRAX is brand new to West Virginia. So, it’s a win-win for West Virginia. They have so many resources that it’s great,” he said.

Part of the Winchester & Western Railroad at Corning Way in Martinsburg.

OmniTRAX is headquartered in Denver and owns 23 railroads all over the U.S. and in parts of Canada. It also owns more than 500 short line and regional railroads. About 350 industrial customers like P&G, steel companies, and oil and natural gas companies use those railroads to ship their goods.

But the Winchester & Western Railroad is only their second line in the northeast.

“For OmniTRAX, it gets us a dot on the map in a market that we’ve been interested in for a very long time,” Ean Johnson, Vice President of Economic Development at OmniTRAX, said in an interview via Skype.

Johnson said a major benefit in purchasing Winchester & Western is the rail’s proximity to more than 100 million people within a day’s drive. He said that’s a huge draw for potential manufacturing companies looking for a new place to set up shop.

“It’s providing access to market, which then allows our customers to make those strategic decisions to locate their facilities,” he said.

And those facilities that look to locate near the Winchester & Western Railroad will help to diversify West Virginia’s economy, bringing more jobs to the Eastern Panhandle area, Johnson said.

“Oftentimes those jobs are well-paying manufacturing jobs that stick around communities for a very long time.”

The Winchester & Western Railroad is considered a short line, and it’s made up of two divisions. The first is the Virginia Division. It has 53 miles of track running through the Shenandoah Valley and moves about 12,500 carloads per year. The second is the New Jersey Division. It has 47 miles and moves 8,500 carloads per year.

The New Jersey Division interconnects with the Winchester & Western Railroad in Martinsburg. Both divisions have connections to CSX Transportation and Norfolk Southern – two major railroads called Class 1s.

The purchase of the Winchester & Western gave OmniTRAX a total of 470 railcars and seven locomotives to add to their overall operation, and the company also picked up about 60 employees through the Winchester & Western.

Berkeley County officials are also glad to see the purchase.

Sandy Hamilton, executive director of the Berkeley County Development Authority, said that for years the Winchester & Western Railroad was underutilized, but she thinks OmniTRAX will help the railroad and the communities around it grow.

“We have a gem here. We have a great line that would cost billions of dollars to replicate it,” she said.

Hamilton notes OmniTRAX will bring in new capital, resources, and support to the railroad, and she believes the impact will filter out throughout West Virginia.

“They have some exciting ideas, they have exciting connections, and I think it’ll be someone good that we can partner with to market.”

But in terms of actual dollar amount, the total economic impact for the community is yet to be determined.

November 11, 1918: World War I Ends

On November 11, 1918, World War I ended after more than four years of brutal fighting. Nearly 39 million soldiers had been killed, wounded, or listed as missing. American soldiers arrived on the scene only during the last year-and-a-half of the war. Still, some 116,000 died in the conflict.

About 58,000 West Virginians served in the war. Of these, more than 1,100 were killed in action, and nearly 700 died in training. Many others died from influenza or other diseases.

On the home front, patriotic West Virginians rationed food and coal, volunteered as Red Cross personnel, and sold Liberty Bonds. In addition, the U.S. government built an ordnance center at South Charleston and a gunpowder plant at Nitro. Neither facility, however, was completed before the war ended.

Of the more than two million Americans who served in World War I, the last-surviving veteran was Frank Buckles, who died at Charles Town in 2011 at the age of 110. Today, memorials to the war can be seen in Welch, Kimball, Logan, Martinsburg, Huntington, and Charleston, with individual statues and plaques in many other towns.

October 18, 1778: Martinsburg Incorporated

The town of Martinsburg in Berkeley County was incorporated on October 18, 1778. The place had been settled originally by Joseph and John Morgan in the…

The town of Martinsburg in Berkeley County was incorporated on October 18, 1778. The place had been settled originally by Joseph and John Morgan in the 1740s. But it was Scotland native Adam Stephen who put Martinsburg on the map. Stephen established mills along the banks of Tuscarora Creek, built himself a limestone house, and, in 1773, laid out the town. He named it for Colonel Thomas Bryan Martin, a nephew of Lord Thomas Fairfax, who owned much of the present Eastern Panhandle.

Martinsburg took off with the arrival of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad in 1842. The railroad facilities were destroyed during the Civil War but rebuilt after the conflict. The country’s first nationwide strike—the great railroad strike of 1877—was started by B&O workers at Martinsburg before spreading to other cities.

Other than the railroad, Martinsburg was best known for its textile factories. By the end of the 20^th century, though, the railroad facilities and factories were gone. However, by this time, Martinsburg was becoming one of our state’s fastest-growing cities thanks to an influx of suburbanites from the Baltimore-Washington area.

World War II-Era Explosive Brought to Martinsburg Air Base, Prompts Evacuation

Residents and businesses in the southern part of Martinsburg were encouraged to evacuate Monday afternoon, after a resident brought an explosive device to the 167th Airlift Wing in Martinsburg.

A World War II-era bazooka training round was brought to the air base, not for any sinister reason, but to get rid of it.

Berkeley County Sheriff Curtis Keller said a local resident was cleaning his mother’s basement when they discovered the explosive.

“They moved into this house about 30 or 40 years ago,” Keller said. “And this stuff was already in there, so whoever owned the house prior to them had evidently collected this stuff and had it down in the basement.”

Keller said no arrests were made.

In a press release, air base officials said a voluntary evacuation was put into effect for residents living nearby. An explosive disposal unit from Andrews Air Force Base in Maryland was called in to assess the situation.

Nearby roads were also closed as a precaution.

“The safety of our 167th Airlift Wing members and the members of the community is paramount. We appreciate the support of the local law enforcement and cooperation from the residents and businesses impacted by this event,” Col. David Cochran, commander of the 167th Airlift Wing, said in the release.

The evacuation was lifted around 7:45 P.M. Monday night.

July 18, 1877: Governor Matthews Assesses National Railworker's Strike in Martinsburg

On July 18, 1877, Governor Henry Mathews arrived in Martinsburg—on the scene of the first nationwide strike in U.S. history. Baltimore and Ohio Railroad workers had walked off the job in response to a pay cut. The strike soon spread along the rails from Baltimore to Chicago.

The strike’s first violence occurred at Martinsburg, where workers stopped the trains from running. Mathews had dispatched the state’s militia to put down the strike, but most of the militiamen were friends or family of the strikers. At one point, a striker fired at the militiamen, who shot back and mortally wounded the railroad worker. The militia then withdrew and refused to take further action.

Mathews sent another militia unit from Wheeling, but it also failed to stop the strike. The day after Mathews arrived, federal troops ended the work stoppage in Martinsburg, although violence continued elsewhere in the nation for weeks, with some 100 people losing their lives.

The strike showed that West Virginia authorities were ill-prepared to handle unrest among laboring groups and led to calls for developing a professional national guard to control labor disturbances.

Trooper Charged in Martinsburg Beating Was Previously Cleared by Agency

A West Virginia trooper federally charged in the beating of a teenager was previously cleared of wrongdoing in the case by his department.

The Charleston Gazette-Mail reports a recently released West Virginia State Police internal investigation says Trooper Michael Kennedy didn’t engage in criminal conduct during the November arrest of the 16-year-old.

However, Kennedy was later indicted on a charge of deprivation of rights under color of law, which describes crimes committed by on-duty police officers.

Dashcam video shows the teen driver fleeing police and crashing before being kicked, stomped on and punched by officers. Two county deputies in the video were fired and later reinstated. Kennedy and Trooper Derek Walker were fired. Walker wasn’t charged. Kennedy’s trial is set for October.