President Eisenhower and Chessie 29:  The Room on Rails Where Cold War Intrigue Happened

Contributed by the Dwight D. Eisenhower Society

Throughout the 20th century, railroad passenger cars crisscrossed the United States by the tens of thousands, transporting Americans in wartime, peacetime, and sometimes providing the backdrop for other historical events.  One passenger car was “the room where it happened” for a virtually unknown meeting with critical ramifications as President Dwight D. Eisenhower’s administration quietly prepared our country for the Cold War’s worst possible outcomes.

Now the most famous surviving passenger car from the Chesapeake & Ohio Railway, the office rail car “Chessie 29” was permanently assigned to Walter J. Tuohy, the C&O’s charismatic president and later CEO from 1948 to 1966.  Taking its name from the railroad’s mascot, Chessie “the Railroad Kitten,” the 83-foot car provided Tuohy a mobile office on which to conduct railroad business throughout C&O’s rail system, which stretched from Michigan to the Virginia shore.

Chessie 29’s most famous distinction in history connects President Eisenhower, the Cold War, and the famous West Virginia hotel, The Greenbrier, at White Sulphur Springs.  In 1956, following a cryptic overture to the railroad from the Architect of the Capitol, C&O Railway President Walter Tuohy and President Dwight Eisenhower traveled together from Washington to White Sulphur Springs.  During this trip, an agreement was made through which the United States government constructed a top-secret bunker to house members of the U.S. Congress in the event of a nuclear attack on the nation’s capital.  Arriving in the Mountain State together on Chessie 29, the guise for the meeting was the “Summit of the Americas” at The Greenbrier with other North American leaders.

In reality, while on board Chessie 29, Mr. Tuohy and President Eisenhower agreed upon a collaboration by which the federal government funded construction and future staffing of this bunker complex with cut-and-cover concealment, disguised under a to-be-constructed wing for The Greenbrier, which the Chesapeake & Ohio Railway owned at the time.  This bunker, meant to house and allow the surviving United States Congress members to function following an attack, was staffed and kept ready for possible use from the period just before the Cuban Missile Crisis until 1992.

In the context of the Cold War’s fears and President Eisenhower’s quiet but necessary reactions to them, Chessie 29 was the backdrop for what is now nearly unthinkable, as the secret bunker was to be vital for the continuity of our legislative branch of government.  The former office rail car tells this story and preserves the legacy of Eisenhower’s actions in the early years of the world’s nuclear tensions.

The Chesapeake & Ohio Historical Society, a 55-year-old non-profit organization dedicated to preserving and sharing the transportation history of the C&O Railway, now owns Chessie 29 and plans to restore the little-known artifact of the Cold War.  Because it is such an irreplaceable asset, saving this piece of rolling history and returning it to operational condition as a mobile museum and teaching tool for future generations has become a priority for the Virginia-based group.  On the list of surviving equipment from America’s golden age of railroad travel, few passenger cars carry the historical richness and connections to world history like Chessie 29.

Mark Totten is President of the Chesapeake and Ohio Historical Society, which is the recipient of a grant from the Eisenhower Society to develop an exhibit about Eisenhower and Chessie 29. The Eisenhower Society is dedicated to promoting the memory and legacy of leadership of Dwight D. Eisenhower through educational programs, scholarships, grants, and special events. Learn more at dwightdeisenhowersociety.org.