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Dayton, Xenia & Belpre Railroad Co.

When the Columbus & Xenia Railroad was conceived, the intention was to build its tracks through Xenia (Greene Co.) and the Little Miami RR to Dayton (Montgomery Co.). Instead in 1851 the Dayton, Xenia & Belpre was incorporated to build a rail line from Dayton through Xenia to Washington Court House (Fayette Co.) through the then-promising but still undeveloped coal fields of Southeast Ohio to Belpre, Ohio, in Washington Co. Incidentally, across the Ohio River from Belpre was Parkersburg, W.Va. where the Baltimore & Ohio planned its Cincinnati-bound line to cross the mighty river.

Construction of the new line began in 1853 and in early 1854, after just six months, the railhead reached Xenia and the LM&C&X with its connections to the east coast via the CC&C Ry. and the Lakeshore RR. While a roadbed was surveyed, purchased, grubbed and graded another 18 miles east, to Washington C.H., all pretense of extended east of Xenia was dropped as was any reference to Belpre in the company's name. The Dayton & Xenia was now part of a transcontinental rail route. While it required frequent changes of trains, by 1856 it was possible to travel by train more than 1,000 miles from New York to Illinois and the Mississippi River near St. Louis.

The DX&B was sold at foreclosure in 1865 to the LM&C&X. Like the other Little Miami holdings, the DX&B became part of the Pennsy system in 1870 when the Little Miami was leased to the Pennsylvania Railroad for 99 years. The Little Miami lease was assigned to the Pennsylvania Co. 1871. For operations the "P" Co. made the entire 256-mile Little Miami made part of the "The Panhandle Route ," the Pittsburgh, Cincinnati & St. Louis Ry.

At the western end of the 16-mile DX&P, between Clement Tower guarding a crossing of the Cincinnati, Lebanon & Northern (from the south) and the B&O's Dayton cutoff (to the north) and Dayton Union Terminal Assoc. trackage at Wayne Tower was a hill steep enough that through freights bound for Columbus or Richmond were routine routed on the old Columbus, Chicago & Indiana Central line via Urbana, Bradford, Greenville and New Paris. This greater than one percent grade was the ruling grade for Amtrak's National Limited while it used this stretch as part of its Washington-St. Louis run from 1973-1979.

Conrail abandoned the line from Clement Yard on Dayton's east side to Xenia in 1986 as it abandoned the Pennsylvania's mainline between Clement Tower and London in Madison County. From downtown Dayton to Clement, the line is operated as a spur serving GM's Delphi Division (Delco) plants in Kettering, Ohio (Montgomery Co.).

The 13-mile DX&B right of way into Xenia is being developed as a rails-to-trail project. It will use the B&O cutoff right of way abandoned by CSX to connect with Dayton's River Corridor bikeway along the Mad and Great Miami rivers. In Xenia it will connect with the 72-mile Springfield-Milford Little Miami Scenic Trail at the Xenia Bicycle Hub. A visitor's center is being built in 1997 at this park on the site of Xenia's passenger depot. When complete it will be a replica of Xenia (WG) tower that for more than 100 yoars guarded the divergance of the D&XP and Little Miami railroad south of downtown Xenia.

Copyright 1996 - 2008

Last modified: November 24 2007.

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