Pittsburgh and West Virginia Railway

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Pittsburgh and West Virginia Railway
logo
System map
The P&WV formed a connection between the Wheeling and Lake Erie Railway and Western Maryland Railway.
Reporting marks PWV
Locale Connellsville, PA to Pittsburgh Junction, OH
Dates of operation July 2, 1904 – October 16, 1964
Track gauge 4 ft 8½ in (1435 mm) (standard gauge)
Headquarters Greentree, PA

The Pittsburgh and West Virginia Railway was a railroad in the Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and Wheeling, West Virginia areas. Originally built as the Wabash-Pittsburgh Terminal Railway, a Pittsburgh extension of George J. Gould's Wabash Railroad, the venture entered receivership in 1908 and the line was cut loose. An extension completed in 1931 connected it to the Western Maryland Railway at Connellsville, Pennsylvania, forming the Alphabet Route, an independent line between the Northeastern U.S. and the Midwest. It was leased by the Norfolk and Western Railway in 1964 in conjunction with the N&W acquiring several other sections of the former Alphabet Route, but was leased to the new spinoff Wheeling and Lake Erie Railway in 1990, just months before the N&W was merged into the Norfolk Southern Railway.

The original Wabash-Pittsburgh Terminal Railway built several massive engineering works, including the Wabash Terminal in downtown Pittsburgh, destroyed by fire in 1946. The Wabash Bridge over the Monongahela River into Pittsburgh was torn down in 1948, and on December 27, 2004 the Wabash Tunnel just southwest of the bridge opened as a high occupancy vehicle roadway through Mount Washington.

Contents

[edit] History

[edit] Gould system: 1901 to 1908

Around 1900, George J. Gould was assembling railroads to create a transcontinental system. The Western Pacific Railway, Denver and Rio Grande Railroad and Missouri Pacific Railroad formed the line from the Pacific Ocean at San Francisco to the Mississippi River at St. Louis (completed in 1909). Past St. Louis, Gould acquired the Wabash Railroad to Toledo.

On February 1, 1901 Gould, along with George Ramsey, Jr. of the Wabash and others, formed the Pittsburgh-Toledo Syndicate, a syndicate intending to extend the system to Pittsburgh. The next month, the syndicate bought the Pittsburgh and Mansfield Railroad, an unbuilt line with a charter to build into downtown Pittsburgh. By May 1 the syndicate gained control of the Wheeling and Lake Erie Railroad, extending the system from Toledo southeast to Zanesville, Ohio and Wheeling, West Virginia.

The extension to Pittsburgh was chartered in three parts - the Cross Creek Railroad April 23, 1900 in Ohio, Pittsburgh, Toledo and Western Railroad April 3, 1901 in West Virginia, and Pittsburgh, Carnegie and Western Railroad July 17, 1901 in Pennsylvania. Work on the line, branching off the P&WV's line to Wheeling at Pittsburgh Junction, Ohio, began June 14, 1901. On May 7, 1904 the three companies were consolidated into the Wabash-Pittsburgh Terminal Railway, to which all the properties of the syndicate (including the W&LE) were transferred. The first train crossed the Wabash Bridge over the Monongahela River into Pittsburgh on June 1, and passenger service into the new Wabash Terminal began July 2, with through service over the W&LE and Wabash to Toledo, Chicago, St. Louis and Kansas City.

In addition to the Pittsburgh extension, Gould also planned a line from Zanesville southeast to Belington, West Virginia, built by the Little Kanawha Syndicate. From Belington east to tidewater in Baltimore, the Fuller Syndicate bought the West Virginia Central and Pittsburgh Railway and Western Maryland Railroad. Another part of the plan was the Philadelphia and Western Railway, a high-quality interurban streetcar line, which would have run from Philadelphia west to the Western Maryland at York, Pennsylvania. The lines of the Fuller Syndicate were completed to Baltimore, but the Little Kanawha line was not completed, and thus a connection between the main system and the Fuller Syndicate was not built.

As Gould's plans directly affected the Pennsylvania Railroad's business, measures were taken by the PRR to fight back. This included the eviction from PRR property of telegraph poles owned by Gould's Western Union.

The Panic of 1907 hit Gould hard, due to the high costs of building the line when all the easy routes had been taken, and the Western Maryland Railroad was the first of his properties to fail, entering receivership on March 5, 1908. The Wabash-Pittsburgh Terminal Railway entered receivership May 29 of that year, ending through traffic between Pittsburgh and the W&LE and Wabash system.

[edit] Independence: 1908 to 1964

After years of operation by its receivers, the company was finally sold at foreclosure in August 1916 and reorganized November as the Pittsburgh and West Virginia Railway. The line was again being considered for part of a major system - the "Fifth System" to supplement the four major players, the Pennsylvania Railroad, New York Central Railroad, Baltimore and Ohio Railroad and Erie Railroad - but there was still the issue of the gap between the W&LE/P&WV and the Western Maryland, never filled by the Little Kanawha Syndicate.

The existing West Side Belt Railroad provided for the beginning of this extension, crossing the P&WV at the southwest portal of the Wabash Tunnel under Mount Washington and running southeast and east to Clairton on the Monongahela River. After an initial denial, the Interstate Commerce Commission approved the P&WV's plan to acquire the West Side Belt in December 1928. The P&WV also applied to take over the Western Maryland, but was turned down.

On February 11, 1931 the extension to Connellsville, Pennsylvania opened, where the Western Maryland continued east, splitting from the West Side Belt at Pierce. This formed what came to be known as the Alphabet Route, following roughly the same plan as Gould's system, but using the New York, Chicago and St. Louis Railroad (Nickel Plate) rather than the Wabash, reaching both St. Louis and Chicago.

The Nickel Plate leased the Wheeling and Lake Erie on December 1, 1949. On October 16, 1964 the Norfolk and Western Railway merged the Nickel Plate and leased the P&WV. On the other hand, the Western Maryland Railway went to the competing Baltimore and Ohio Railroad and Chesapeake and Ohio Railway in 1967.

[edit] Norfolk and Western: 1964 to 1990

The Pittsburgh and West Virginia Railroad was organized in 1967 as a real estate investment trust to own the property leased to the N&W.

[edit] Wheeling and Lake Erie: 1990 to present

On May 17, 1990, several months before the N&W merged with the Southern Railway to form the Norfolk Southern Railway, the N&W spun off most of the former W&LE as a new Wheeling and Lake Erie Railway. The P&WV lease was transferred to the new W&LE, which has also acquired trackage rights over CSX Transportation lines from Connellsville east to Hagerstown, Maryland.

[edit] References

[edit] External links


Current (operating) Class I railroads of North America
United States: AMTK, BNSF, CSXT, GTW, KCS, NS, SOO, UP - Canada: CN, CP, VIA - Mexico: FXE, TFM, KCSM
See also: List of USA/Canada/Mexico Class I Railroads, List of USA/Canadian Class II Railroads, Class III railroad, Class 2 Railroads in Canada,
Short-line railroad, List of United States railroads, List of Canadian railroads, list of Mexican railroads
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