Baltimore and Ohio Railroad Co. - 1900 dated High Denomination Railway Stock Certificate
Inv# RS1005B Stock
Ohio
Baltimore & Ohio Railroad Locomotive Stock. Train in circle top left. Very elaborate Victorian borders. Becoming scarce. Popular. The prettiest of B & O stocks. High number of shares ranging from 5,906 to 1,000!
The Baltimore & Ohio Railroad (reporting mark BO) was the first common carrier railroad & the oldest railroad in the United States, w/ its first section opening in 1830. Merchants from Baltimore, which had benefited to some extent from the construction of the National Road early in the century, wanted to do business w/ settlers crossing the Appalachian Mountains. The railroad faced competition from several existing & proposed enterprises, including the Albany-Schenectady Turnpike, built in 1797, the Erie Canal, which opened in 1825, & the Chesapeake & Ohio Canal. At first, the B&O was located entirely in the state of Maryland; its original line extending from the port of Baltimore west to Sandy Hook, Maryland, opened in 1834. There it connected w/ Harper's Ferry, first by boat, then by the Wager Bridge, across the Potomac River into Virginia, and also w/ the navigable Shenandoah River. In 1895 the B&O introduced electric locomotives over 3.75 mi (6.04 km) of line near Camden, initially using an overhead electric slot system.
Following its emergence from bankruptcy, control of the B&O was acquired by the Pennsylvania Railroad in 1901, though the two kept separate corporate identities. A rising young PRR Vice President, Leonor F. Loree, was appointed president. Loree shared the Pennsy management's belief in infrastructure & the B&O at that time needed some of that. New classes of engines were built to haul longer, heavier trains faster. The Old Main Line was reworked, sections of the original right-of-way cut off by the straightening of curves & replacement of old, weight-restricted bridges w/ newer, heavier bridges. Most of Loree's work on the B&O physical plant remains evident today. Many iron & steel bridges on the railroad were replaced w/ stone (Pennsy preferred stone to the preference of the Reading & Lackawanna Railroad for concrete). W/ the adoption of anti-trust legislation in 1906, the relation between the two companies was severed. Read more at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baltimore_and_Ohio_Railroad
A stock certificate is issued by businesses, usually companies. A stock is part of the permanent finance of a business. Normally, they are never repaid, and the investor can recover his/her money only by selling to another investor. Most stocks, or also called shares, earn dividends, at the business's discretion, depending on how well it has traded. A stockholder or shareholder is a part-owner of the business that issued the stock certificates.
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