Nostalgia & History > Abandoned Rails V - P&WV Bridge at Connellsville

One of the last main line railroads to be completed in the eastern United States was the Connellsville extension of the Pittsburgh & West Virginia Railroad from the Pittsburgh area to Connellsville, PA, where connection was made with the Western Maryland Railroad.  That link was originally contemplated by George Gould in his attempt to assemble a transcontinental rail system that included the WP, Rio Grande, MP, Wabash, W&LE and WM.  Gould was already financially over-extended when the Panic of 1907 occurred, and that helped put an end to that dream.  Gould's Wabash Terminal Railroad had built as far east as Pittsburgh, but the gap between Pittsburgh and the Western Maryland remained when his empire collapsed in 1908.  That gap would finally be filled in 1931.  First, the Western Maryland completed its extension from Cumberland, MD to Connellsville, PA in 1912, connecting with the Pittsburgh & Lake Erie at Connellsville.  The former Wabash Terminal was sold at foreclosure in 1916 and soon re-organized as the Pittsburgh & West Virginia Railroad (P&WV).  Through its western connections, the P&WV gave the Nickel Plate and W&LE access to the Pittsburgh area.  The P&WV leased, and then eventually acquired outright, the West Side Belt Railroad between Pittsburgh and Clairton, PA.  There was only about a 40 mile gap between the West Side Belt and Connellsville, and filing that gap would enable a new route between the East Coast and the Midwest.  The P&WV got permission from the ICC in 1927 to do this, and construction began in 1928.  At its west end, the Connellsville Extension of the P&WV connected with the West Side Belt at Pierce, PA.  It was a huge engineering and construction project, requiring many tunnels and bridges.  Despite the onset of the Great Depression, construction continued, and the line was completed in 1931. 

Among the many large bridges on the P&WV Connellsville extension was one over the valley of the Youghiogheny River at Connellsville, roughly 1,000 feet long, a combination of trestle work and through-truss structures.  On the north bank of the river, the bridge passed over the B&O's main line between Cumberland and Pittsburgh.  On the south bank, the P&WV made a connection with the Pittsburgh & Lake Erie.  In order to connect to the Western Maryland, the P&WV had to reach an agreement with the P&LE for P&WV trains to utilize about 0.2 miles of P&LE to reach the WM in South Connellsville.  

From its opening in 1931 into the late 1970's, the P&WV was part of the famed Alphabet Route, a group of smaller and loosely affiliated railroads that competed with B&O, NYC, PRR and the Erie for traffic between the East Coast and the Midwest.  Among the participants in the Alphabet Route were the Nickel Plate, W&LE, P&WV, WM, Reading, and CNJ.  The Lehigh & Hudson River and the New Haven could also be included for traffic to and from New England points.  The participating road offered fast run-through service and effective competition into the 1960's, but rail mergers that era, plus de-industrialization and highway competition, would eventually kill the Alphabet Route.  The P&WV became part of the N&W system in 1964, the same year as the N&W-Nickel Plate-Wabash merger.  The Connellsville Extension of the Western Maryland was mostly abandoned in 1975 after B&O integrated WM operations into its own.  A short stub of the WM was kept in operation between Ohiopyle and Connellsville until a connection could be built between the former P&WV and the B&O main line.  That was completed in 1976, allowing for complete abandonment of the WM in Connellsville.  Once the new connection between the B&O and former P&WV was opened, there was no need to use the bridge over the Youghiogheny.  Although it hasn't handled a train since 1976, that bridge still stands today.  Various ideas for re-use have been thrown around, but nothing has developed.  Any re-use would be quite expensive, and demolition would be hugely expensive given its heavy construction.  The modern-day Wheeling & Lake Erie, which now operates the former P&WV, still comes into Connellsville to connect with CSX, using the 1976 connection just west of the bridge.  

Last week, on January 30, Roadjob (aka Bill Rettburg) posted a 1972 photo of a train on the Youghiogheny River bridge.  Here is a link to that post.  https://www.trainorders.com/discussion/read.php?11,5809881,5809881#msg-5809881  

Roadjob's post prompted me to dig out and scan and post my photos of that bridge.  I never got to see it in service, as I did not get to Connellsville until the early 1980's.  Here are some photos of the bridge:

#1  Looking east, on April 25, 1982.  The closer through truss is above the B&O, four tracks at that point.  Roadjob apparently took his 1972 photo from the support on the right side of the through truss above the B&O.  As he said, he was 22 and felt immortal at the time.  I will plead guilty to some crazy things of my own at that age, that I would never even consider today.  I would also note that many local residents used this bridge as a shortcut, both before and after abandonment.  I haven't been back for many years, but believe the bridge is closed off today.  The 1976 connection between the former B&O and P&WV would be to my left, outside of the photo frame.   

#2  This view is looking west from the south bank of the Youghiogheny, showing the through truss over the river, and the through truss over the B&O in the distance, plus the trestle work in between.  Photo date is December 8, 1984.  

#3  This view from the south river bank shows the massive scale of the through truss over the river.  December 8, 1984.  The former P&LE line into Connellsville, also abandoned, but still in service at the time of this photo, can be seen through the trees on the south bank of the river.  This was certainly a bridge built for the ages.  It was in service for 45 years, and has been out of service for even longer, 48 years.  What will happen to it?  There is currently a proposal (The Iron Horse Bridge Park Project) to turn it into a tourist destination for cyclists and pedestrians, connecting it to various trails in the area, including the former WM and the Coal and Coke Trail.  The estimated cost was $25 million.  Time will tell if that effort is successful.  

Steve Salamon
Valley City, OH









 



Edited 5 time(s). Last edit at 02/06/24 07:08 by cr7998.

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Those are great photos and a great story.  My late brother-in-law was the grandson of the one time president of the Pittsburgh and West Virginia Railroad, and I have two nephews, one who lives in the Pittsburgh suburbs and one here in Maryland who I'm sure will enjoy reading this history.  Thank you so much for the story and the photos.
John in White Marsh, Maryland

Nice post.

Thank you, Steve.
Your photos, although post-in service, are historic in their own right. Even though the bridge still stands, such veg-free shots would be difficult--if not impossible--today.
I appreciate your thorough narrative as well.
/Ted

Good background story, thank you very much.

Your background of the P&WV make these photos come alive.
Bob

That was very interesting!!   Thank you for putting it together!!

Ron

Great post!

As usual, great pics and write-up Steve. Anyone know what traffic was like on this route, maybe a few trains a day each way? Weren't there 2 or 3 Alphabet Route symbols each way at one time?

JG

Even in recent years, the P&WV has cause some controversy.  After the N&W leased the Pittsburgh & West Virginia in 1964, the company was reorganized and existed for the next 40+ years for the purpose of paying out the lease payments from N&W to the stockholders.  Then about a dozen or so years ago a group bought enough share to take over the company, create a new corporate shell above it called PowerREIT, and use the dividends to buy various dubious solar, wind, and pot growing projects!  They even sued (and lost) NS to try to cancel or renegotiate the lease!

The stock in P&WV for years hovered around $6 a share.  After these guys took over, they pumped it up to over $80 a share before it crashed to today's 59 cents a share - less than the dividend it paid a dozen years ago!

I grew up with this line almost literally in my back yard. It was a short dead end road across from the US Bureau of Mines research mine through a tunnel which had a build date I am struggling to remember, but think it was 1901 or 1902. That woould make sense if it was on the older West Side Belt  RR.
As far as traffic, when I grew up there in the 70s, there was plenty of traffic. Coal, Coke, cars, piggybacks, and an infinite variety of boxcars. Wish I could go back sometimes...



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/06/24 11:58 by jtbrandt.

CR7998 - Thanks for making such a great post!  Made me get out the atlases and look at Google Earth - the perfect waste of time.

NJMIDLAND - you are correct the P&WV was a great under the radar passive dividend investment for years.  An old rail-interested boss told me about it, and I managed to buy a fair amount over time.  It was no Google or Apple but my broker never could understand how something that did nothing but take in a lease payment was paying an $.90 dividend per year on an ~.$6 share cost.  PowerREIT did that in haha.

I was always intrigued by this heavy connection to the mid-west from the Western Maryland. It always seemed it could have caught on as a mainline through the Alphabet-Route. It did do reasonably well but just never quite enough. What great infrastructure gone to waste.
Go
 

Thank you for this very informative, well-documented post.!