RABO Bio: CHARLES L. AMOS By Bill Howes

As a teenager, Charlie Amos was torn between two competing interests - railroads and painting.  When it came time to choose a career, he turned to railroading at the virtual exclusion of art... at least for about thirty years.  Eventually, he “married” the two fields of interest to become one of today’s leading railroad landscape artists.

Charles L. Amos was born October 4, 1930.  The family home was in Lutherville, Maryland, on the Northern Central line of the Pennsylvania Railroad running from Baltimore toward York and Harrisburg.  Charlie’s father commuted on the line’s Parkton local to his bookbinding business in Baltimore.  But it was the industry in which his mother had worked that would captivate her son.  Before marriage, she had been employed by the Cumberland & Pennsylvania Railroad that operated between Cumberland and Piedmont, West Virginia, and later merged into the Western Maryland Railway.  

Charlie’s father arranged a steam locomotive cab ride.  The four-mile trip from Lutherville to Cockeysville aboard Pennsy class E3sd Atlantic 5011 kick-started his eight-year-old son’s life-long passion for railroads.  His parents also detected and encouraged Charlie’s artistic talent.  By the time he was eleven years old, he was attending Baltimore’s Martinet School of Fine and Commercial Art on Saturdays and during the summer.  He took the train into the city, developing friendships with the Pennsylvania Railroad crews that led to frequent trips in the cab of an E5 or E6 Atlantic or, occasionally, a K4 Pacific.  Marjorie Martinet took a personal interest in the budding young artist.  She had been a student of the noted impressionist artist and educator William Merritt Chase.  Charlie was soon adopting this realistic tradition of classical painting as his own style.

Charlie graduated from Towson High School and the Martinet School in 1949.  Fearing that his artistic talents might not be marketable as a career, and by now having a good dose of railroading in his blood, he sought a job on the railroad.  Meanwhile, he was driving a bus by day and attending the University of Baltimore School of Business, Industry and Management at night.  In 1952, he landed a clerical job with the Western Maryland in the Agent’s office at Port Covington.  Soon, he was filling in for vacationing clerks in the Vice President and General Manager’s office at the railroad’s Baltimore headquarters in the Standard Oil Building.  This brought him to the attention of George Leilich, General Superintendent, that led to a career-long relationship between the two men.  With Leilich’s support, Charlie obtained a semester’s leave of absence from the railroad at half pay - plus the cost of tuition and books - to finish college.  Observes Charlie today, “I wanted the railroad to make an investment in me.”

Yearning to get experience in train operations, Charlie took a job as Brakeman.  Upon being furloughed, he entered engine service as a Fireman.  It was quite a challenge on steam locomotives for someone who weighed only 122 pounds!  Fortunately, it was the waning days for steam as the Western Maryland was rapidly dieselizing.  Charlie took every opportunity to run, whether with steam or diesel.

Later in the 1950s, Charlie worked as Chief Clerk to the Assistant Superintendent in Baltimore, Special Yardmaster at Port Covington and Supervisor of Marine Operations at Port Covington.

Along the way, he married in 1954 and, with his wife, Mary, began a family at their home in Towson.  In time, they would have three sons and a daughter.  Their son Bill has followed his father into railroading, working as an Locomotive Engineer for Amtrak on the Northeast Corridor.

In 1960, the Amos family moved to Hagerstown when Charlie was appointed Assistant Trainmaster at that hub of Western Maryland train operations.  He found it quite a change from the marine operations at Port Covington!

A year later, he became Assistant Trainmaster at Hanover covering the bucolic “Dutch Line” from Highfield through Gettysburg and Hanover to Emory Grove, plus the branch between Porter’s and York.  It was a period when regular Stone Train service was inaugurated between Bittinger and the Bethlehem Steel plant at Sparrows Point in Baltimore.  Charlie recalls his four years at Hanover being his most enjoyable railroad assignment, thanks in large measure to the strong work ethic of the road’s Pennsylvania Dutch employees.

It was with mixed emotions that Charlie accepted a promotion to Assistant Superintendent at Port Covington in 1965.  “I had been a big fish in a small pond in Hanover,” he notes. “Now I would be a small fish in a big pond.”  He was aware, however, that turning down this assignment could stall his career.  He might not get another chance for advancement.

In 1970, Charlie took a leave of absence from the Western Maryland (never to return) to begin what would turn out to be 14 years working in Washington while continuing to live in Towson.

First, he went to work as Special Assistant to the Deputy Administrator of the Federal Railroad Administration in the U. S. Department of Transportation.  He brought some badly-needed practical railroad operating management experience to an organization that had recently assumed many functions - including railroad safety - previously the domain of the Interstate Commerce Commission.

Around 1974, Charlie was appointed Congressional Relations Officer for railroad affairs at the Department of Transportation.  Here, he met John Snow who was at the DOT writing legislation to partially deregulate the railroad industry, most notably the Rail Revitalization and Regulatory Reform Act (4R Act) of 1976.  Charlie’s task was to help shepherd the legislation through Congress.  He believes these initiatives, leading to the Staggers Act of 1980, are largely responsible for the railroad renaissance of today.

Charlie returned to the private sector around 1978 when he became Executive Director of the State Rail Programs Division of the Association of American Railroads.  This involved helping the railroads work with the states on programs for plant rationalization in the new regulatory environment, as well as on grade crossing safety issues.

By the early 1980s, and with the encouragement of Mary, Charlie began painting again.  He entered works at art shows, winning some ribbons and gaining confidence in his ability to make a living as an artist.  By 1983, he was selling some of his paintings and receiving commissions for new works, including his first for the Chessie System.

Enthusiastically embracing a new career, Charlie left the AAR in 1984.  With their children having left the nest in Towson, Charlie and Mary moved to a farm in Tunnelton, West Virginia, near the summit of the Cheat River and Newburg Grades on the West End of B&O’s Cumberland Division.  In 1987, they moved to Cumberland where Charlie set up a studio and from 1988 to 1991 served as Executive Director of the Chamber of Commerce of Allegany County.  He became deeply involved in the county’s efforts to establish a tourist railroad operation on the former Western Maryland line between Cumberland and Frostburg... So involved, in fact, that with his engineer’s certificate in hand, he was frequently at the throttle of the Western Maryland Scenic Railroad’s steam and diesel locomotives.

After several moves in recent years, Charlie and Mary have now settled in Swanton, Maryland, high up on B&O’s famous Seventeen Mile Grade.  He maintains a studio on Pershing Street in Cumberland, conveniently within sight of the railroad.

Charlie has more than 300 paintings to his credit, a great many of which have incorporated his love and knowledge of railroads.  He has had commissions from many individuals and organizations such as Chessie System/CSX, Sea-Land Services, Safetran Systems, AAR, FRA/DOT, DeLeuw Cather & Company, Pioneer Press of West Virginia and Preston Memorial Hospital. 

Although accomplished in charcoal, pastels and oils, he currently works almost exclusively in oils.  Well known for his landscapes - particularly railroad subjects - Charlie is now doing more portraits.  He recently completed a painting of the late British actress Kay Kendall and her sister, Kim Campbell.

Charlie is a member of a number of artists’ organizations.  But the one that best confirms that he has successfully resolved the railroad vs. art conflict of his youth is his high standing in the Society of Steam Era Artists of America.