51ĀŅĀ×

Much has been written about the that ran, and sometimes raged, through 51ĀŅĀ×ā€™s Athens Campus. But for 135 years there was another mode of transportation that was as much a part of the OHIO landscape and experience.

What began as the Marietta & Cincinnati Railroad changed names and ownership several times over the decades, but to most OHIO students it was the Baltimore & Ohio (B&O) Railroad.

Starting in 1856, the rail line opened town and gown to the greater nation, bringing students, employees and visitors to Athens. ā€œHow well I remember my arrival in Athens on the 1 p.m. B&O from the West!ā€ . ā€œI was hot, dusty, and tired, but most of all utterly strange, for not only was I entering upon my first position as dean of women, but I was about to become 51ĀŅĀ×ā€™s first dean of women.ā€

The B&O skirted OHIOā€™s College Green and what would become East Green. For the rail lineā€™s first 100-plus years, only the Universityā€™s athletic facilities and a few buildings lay on the other side of the tracks.

As the campus expanded in the 1960s and ā€™70s with the construction of West Green, Clippinger Laboratories and South Green, so, too, did the B&Oā€™s role in the lives of studentsā€”forced to navigate the tracks that transported goods and people from, to and through the community.

ā€œThe railway affects not only the South Green, but almost all students on campus in some way; usually itā€™s the noise ā€¦,ā€ a student wrote in the . ā€œThe train can make you late for class or simply put you behind schedule if you have to wait for it. So, itā€™s not unusual to see students bolt as soon as they hear its shrill whistle.ā€

A Railroad Repurposed

In October 1991, the 51ĀŅĀ× Board of Trustees approved the purchase of the abandoned railroad bed that crossed campus. As Alan Geiger, MBA ā€™82, PHD ā€™84, then-assistant to President Charles Ping, put it: It presented an opportunity to ā€œknit the campus together.ā€

Land that once carried trains through campus now carries people. Bobcats today traverse a pedestrian path that runs from South Green to Baker University Centerā€”chugging along the same route as the steam and diesel engines of a bygone era.

Future plans call for the expansion of this corridor, creating a multimodal pathway that extends from Stimson Avenue to OHIOā€™s Innovation Center and beyond and serving the new Union Street Green and forthcoming Russ Research Opportunity Centerā€”a building whose roots trace back to a once thriving hub of the railroad industry.