In 1961,the C&O sold a large portion of trackage from North Parkersburg,WV to Weirton,WV and into Pittsburgh,PA. The OR&E instantly bought the line, and finally connected 3 major cities in the area directly by them. Then they decided to change their name again ,since they were operating in 3 states, to the Appalachian & Atlantic Railroad. The New A&A realized there was a need to build a line through the northern part of West Virginia to connect the B&O interchange in Terra Alta, WV directly to the Ohio River, so the A&A started with the Western Maryland to build the new line. It was completed in 1963. The A&A at the same time was building a line from Parkersburg,WV to Indianapolis,IN and Chicago,Ill.When the lines opened the stock price for one share went from $2.45 to $31.28 in the same month and made stock investors happy and the railroad flourished. Big setbacks were pressed on the A&A in the 1970's when the big railroads started merging with each other, the A&A bought it self from the Western Maryland, and wanted to become of The Penn Central, but they were rejected from the deal. Their "mother" railroad was absorbed into the new Chessie system, and left the A&A all alone, but still doing better than most other railroads. When The Penn Central went bankrupt in 1975, the A&A made a bid to Buy the Penn Central, but the U.S. government didn't accept it and created CONRAIL. Then on July 13, 1979, the A&A's head quarters were called by the Union Pacific to a Merger, they went into talks. When the final proposal went before the ICC, they struck it down and was ended there. Years passed and so did more gains on Wall Street, track milage and money. In 1983 the A&A bought out the Georgia, Tennesee, and Southern, a 5,200 mile railroad through Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, Tennesee and Kentucky. it added 2,00 locomotives to their hungry roster and still did not slow them down. In the late 1980's the new CSX system was scrapping several old,and tired locomotives and the A&A saw this as a way to quench their thirst for motive power. The A&A sent ,in late 1988, several crews to Cumberland,MD and to Huntington,WV. 600 locomotives were pruchased among them were SD35s, SD7, SD9s,GP7s, and GP35s. 396 of them were put into service while others were put into the scrap yard for parts. In 1989 the A&A sent in their first order ever of new engines, they were CW40-8s from General Electric. In 1997 the A&A pioneered in the use of AC powered trucks on and order of 100 SD70MACs. In early 1999 The A&A started to buy retired B23-7's from CSX, 100 of them were saved from the torch, or at least for a few years. To this day the A&A has over 11,000 miles of trackage in all. Not bad for a railroad that started with 3 former Central Pacific 4-4-0s.
NOTABLES:: the A&A's largest steam locomotive was a AS-class 2-6-6-4 from N&W lasted until 1965. A&A's largest Diesel is an SD80MAC brand new from EMD in 1998.