THURMOND, W.VA. (SWVO) – Recently, a storied piece of railroad history made a brief return to familiar tracks in Thurmond.
Aboard an Amtrak train, the Chapel Hill railcar—once a frequent traveler on the Chesapeake & Ohio Railway—stopped in town, drawing a direct line to a glamorous past.
Originally built in 1922 for cereal heiress Marjorie Merriweather Post and her husband, financier E.F. Hutton, the railcar was first christened Hussar and designed for both luxury travel and business on the move.
The couple used the car to commute between their New York City residence, their extravagant Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, and their Adirondack retreat, Camp Topridge.
Known for her opulent entertaining, Post often hosted guests aboard the railcar during her travels. After her divorce from Hutton in 1935, the Hussar became hers in the settlement.
She later married Joseph E. Davies, a prominent Washington attorney and diplomat, who served as U.S. ambassador to both the Soviet Union and Belgium.
Before departing for Moscow in 1937, Post sold the car to the Chesapeake & Ohio Railway, where it entered a new chapter—eventually serving as a business car for railway executives through the 1960s.
Facing the threat of being scrapped in the wake of Amtrak’s formation, the railcar was saved by rail enthusiast DeWitt Chapple Jr., who purchased and lovingly restored it.
Renaming it Chapel Hill in honor of his alma mater, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapple preserved its original number and grandeur.
In 1972, he took it for a celebratory ride to Philadelphia, hitched to the rear of Amtrak’s National Limited—a nod to its golden-age legacy.
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