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 part of the Alphabet Route, a coalition of independent lines between the

Northeastern United States The Northeastern United States, also referred to as the Northeast, the East Coast, or the American Northeast, is a geographic region of the United States. It is located on the Atlantic coast of North America, with Canada to its north, the Southe ...

and the

Midwest The Midwestern United States, also referred to as the Midwest or the American Midwest, is one of four Census Bureau Region, census regions of the United States Census Bureau (also known as "Region 2"). It occupies the northern central part of ...

. It was leased by the

Norfolk and Western Railway The Norfolk and Western Railway , commonly called the N&W, was a US class I railroad, formed by more than 200 railroad mergers between 1838 and 1982. It was headquartered in Roanoke, Virginia, for most of its existence. Its motto was "Precisio ...

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 Norfolk Southern Railway is a Class I freight railroad in the United States formed in 1982 with the merger of Norfolk and Western Railway and Southern Railway. With headquarters in Atlanta, the company operates 19,420 route miles (31 ...

. The original Wabash Pittsburgh Terminal Railway built several massive engineering works, including the Wabash Terminal in downtown Pittsburgh, damaged by two fires in 1946 and demolished in 1953. The

Wabash Bridge __NOTOC__ The Wabash Bridge carries one railroad track across the Mississippi River between Hannibal, Missouri, and Pike County, Illinois. Built by the Wabash Railroad, the bridge is today owned by the Norfolk Southern Railway. On May 3, 1982, t ...

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. As of January 2020 the two piers of the long-gone Wabash Bridge remain standing. The line also had a branch to West End, Pennsylvania, that was abandoned in 2011, and a branch to West Mifflin, Pennsylvania, known as the Mifflin Branch. And it also has a small industrial branch located near Belle Vernon, Pennsylvania. At the end of 1960 P&WV operated of road on of track; that year it reported 439 million net ton-miles of revenue freight.

History

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 Toledo most commonly refers to: * Toledo, Spain, a city in Spain * Province of Toledo, Spain * Toledo, Ohio, a city in the United States Toledo may also refer to: Places Belize * Toledo District * Toledo Settlement Bolivia * Toledo, Orur ...

. On February 1, 1901 Gould, along with Joseph 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 Pittsburgh ( ) is a city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, United States, and the county seat of Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, Allegheny County. It is the most populous city in both Allegheny County and Wester ...

, 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 passed through the Wabash Tunnel and 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 The Kansas City metropolitan area is a bi-state metropolitan area anchored by Kansas City, Missouri. Its 14 counties straddle the border between the U.S. states of Missouri (9 counties) and Kansas (5 counties). With and a population of more ...

. In addition to the Pittsburgh extension Gould planned a line from Zanesville southeast to Belington, West Virginia, built by the Little Kanawha Syndicate. From Belington east to

tidewater Tidewater may refer to: * Tidewater (region), a geographic area of southeast Virginia, southern Maryland, and northeast North Carolina. ** Tidewater accent, an accent of American English associated with the Tidewater region of Virginia * Tidewater ...

Baltimore Baltimore ( , locally: or ) is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Maryland, fourth most populous city in the Mid-Atlantic, and the 30th most populous city in the United States with a population of 585,708 in 2020. Baltimore was d ...

, the Fuller Syndicate bought the West Virginia Central and Pittsburg Railway and a controlling interest in the Western Maryland Railroad in 1902. Another part of the plan was the

Philadelphia and Western Railway The Philadelphia and Western Railroad was a high-speed, third rail-equipped, commuter-hauling interurban electric railroad operating in the western suburbs of the U.S. city of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It is now SEPTA's Norristown High Speed ...

, a high-speed third rail electric interurban 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 a connection between the main system and the Fuller Syndicate was not built. As Gould's plans affected the

Pennsylvania Railroad The Pennsylvania Railroad (reporting mark PRR), legal name The Pennsylvania Railroad Company also known as the "Pennsy", was an American Class I railroad that was established in 1846 and headquartered in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It was named ...

's business, PRR took measures to fight back. This included the eviction from PRR property of telegraph poles owned by Gould's Western Union. The

Panic of 1907 The Panic of 1907, also known as the 1907 Bankers' Panic or Knickerbocker Crisis, was a financial crisis that took place in the United States over a three-week period starting in mid-October, when the New York Stock Exchange fell almost 50% from ...

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.

Independence: 1908 to 1929

After years of operation by its receivers, the company was finally sold at

foreclosure Foreclosure is a legal process in which a lender attempts to recover the balance of a loan from a borrower who has stopped making payments to the lender by forcing the sale of the asset used as the collateral for the loan. Formally, a mortg ...

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

, New York Central Railroad,

Baltimore and Ohio Railroad The Baltimore and Ohio Railroad was the first common carrier railroad and the oldest railroad in the United States, with its first section opening in 1830. Merchants from Baltimore, which had benefited to some extent from the construction of ...

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 The West Side Belt Railroad was a standard gauge railroad incorporated July 25, 1895. It ran from Temperanceville, to Clairton, Pennsylvania, with a branch to Banksville. It acquired the Little Saw Mill Run Railroad The Little Saw Mill Run Rai ...

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 The Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC) was a regulatory agency in the United States created by the Interstate Commerce Act of 1887. The agency's original purpose was to regulate railroads (and later trucking) to ensure fair rates, to eliminat ...

approved the P&WV's plan to acquire the West Side Belt in December 1928.

Pennsylvania Railroad influence: 1929 to 1964

In 1929, the

incorporated the Pennroad Corporation as an investment and holding company. This allowed the PRR to indirectly invest in other transportation companies without ICC regulation. Among the initial purchases, 72% of the P&WV was acquired. 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 Nickel Plate Road rather than the Wabash to reach both St. Louis and Chicago. The P&WV and Western Maryland never actually physically connected to one another in Connellsville—a short section of Pittsburgh and Lake Erie Railroad trackage was used to connect the P&WV to the WM. The Nickel Plate leased the Wheeling and Lake Erie on December 1, 1949. In March 1950, the Pennroad announced plans to lease the P&WV to the Nickel Plate. In 1962, the Norfolk & Western Railway filed to include the P&WV in the upcoming merger of the Nickel Plate. On October 16, 1964, the Norfolk and Western acquired the Nickel Plate and leased the P&WV. On the other hand, the Western Maryland Railway eventually went to the competing

and

Chesapeake and Ohio Railway The Chesapeake and Ohio Railway was a Class I railroad formed in 1869 in Virginia from several smaller Virginia railroads begun in the 19th century. Led by industrialist Collis P. Huntington, it reached from Virginia's capital city of Richmond t ...

in 1967. Following the abandonment of the Western Maryland Railway mainline from Connellsville to Cumberland, Maryland, in 1975, a connection was established between the P&WV and the B&O at a location near Connellsville called Sodem, and the P&WV's connection to the P&LE and WM was abandoned at this same time. This enabled a semblance of the old Alphabet Route to continue under the Chessie System, although on B&O lines east from Connellsville instead of WM lines.

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. The railroad is now a subsidiary of

Power REIT Power most often refers to: * Power (physics), meaning "rate of doing work" ** Engine power, the power put out by an engine ** Electric power * Power (social and political), the ability to influence people or events ** Abusive power Power may ...

, real estate investment trust that is publicly traded on the NYSE under the symbol "PW". The leased properties consist of a railroad line 112 miles in length, extending from Connellsville, Washington, and Allegheny Counties in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania; Brooke County in the State of West Virginia, and Jefferson and Harrison Counties in Ohio. There are also branch lines that total 20 miles in length located in Washington County and Allegheny County in Pennsylvania and Brooke County, West Virginia. The railroad was leased in 1964 to NSC, formerly Norfolk and Western Railway Company, by the Company's predecessor for 99 years with the right of unlimited renewal for additional 99-year period under the same terms and conditions, including annual rent payments. The lease provides that NSC at its own expense and without deduction from the rent, will maintain, manage and operate the leased property and make such improvements thereto as it considers desirable. Such improvements made by NSC become the property of the Pittsburgh & West Virginia Railroad, and the cost thereof constitutes a recorded indebtedness of the Company to NSC. The Company's business consists solely of the ownership of the properties subject to the lease, and of collection of rent thereon. Upon termination of the lease, all properties covered by the lease would be returned to Pittsburgh & West Virginia Railroad, together with sufficient cash and other assets to permit operation of the railroad for one year.

Wheeling and Lake Erie: 1990 to present

On May 17, 1990, Norfolk Southern 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 CSX Transportation , known colloquially as simply CSX, is a Class I freight railroad operating in the Eastern United States and the Canadian provinces of Ontario and Quebec. The railroad operates approximately 21,000 route miles () of track. ...

lines from Connellsville east to

Hagerstown, Maryland Hagerstown is a city in Washington County, Maryland, United States and the county seat of Washington County. The population of Hagerstown city proper at the 2020 census was 43,527, and the population of the Hagerstown metropolitan area (exten ...

References

External links

Archives Center, National Museum of American History, Smithsonian Institution
The P&WV Hi-Line
Historic photos, past company newsletters and documents, maps and discussion board
Alphabet Route - Pittsburgh & West Virginia Railway
History {{DEFAULTSORT:Pittsburgh West Virginia Railway Predecessors of the Norfolk and Western Railway Railway companies established in 1916 Railway companies disestablished in 1967 Defunct Ohio railroads Defunct Pennsylvania railroads Defunct West Virginia railroads Wabash Railroad Former Class I railroads in the United States Transportation in Pittsburgh American companies established in 1893 Railway companies established in 1893 American companies disestablished in 1967