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Barbara Jean Hopkins was born in Frostburg, worked as a newspaper carrier, and graduated from Beall High School. Upon graduating from Frostburg State University Barbara worked in a small grocery story prior to qualifying and serving as a railroad engineer for the Western Maryland Railroad/Chessie System. Barbara was one of only a small number of female Chessie engineers at that time.
On February 12, 1980, 26 year-old Barbara Jean Hopkins was riding as a fireman in the cab of an eastbound freight from Cumberland when it collided head-on with a freight coming in the opposite direction. Barbara Jean died in the accident and became Chessie’s first woman engineer to lose her life while on the job.
From: Cumberland News, February 12, 1980, and the Cumberland Evening Times, February 13, 1980.
Both trains were operated by The Baltimore and Ohio Railroad Company. Though sources identify her as a B&O engineer, records indicate she was hired on as Western Maryland, both subsidiaries of Chessie at the time.
The photograph is used with permission of Beall High School. It was in the 1972 Mountaineer