Pittsburgh and West Virginia Railway: Map, Rosters, History

Last revised: September 24, 2026

The Pittsburgh & West Virginia was the high line around Pittsburgh, and the middle initial of the Alphabet Route. George Gould built it to close the gap between the Wheeling & Lake Erie and a railroad that could reach the seaboard. The Wabash-Pittsburgh Terminal opened that line in 1904 and was in receivership by 1908. The reorganized railway, on January 29, 1917, spent the next fourteen years getting to Connellsville. It got there on February 11, 1931. From that day an Alpha Jet could run Pittsburgh Junction, Ohio, to Connellsville on one railroad, the Hi-Line, and hand the car to the Western Maryland. Norfolk & Western leased the property at 12:01 a.m. on October 16, 1964. The trains on it today are the modern Wheeling & Lake Erie.

New Pittsburgh & West Virginia H20-44s #50 and #51 in October 1947. The railroad’s road freight power was this Fairbanks-Morse model. American-Rails.com collection.

On this page: At a glance · Gould’s terminal · The Hi-Line · Connellsville · Steam · Diesels · The lease · Sources

At a glance

The Pittsburgh & West Virginia Railway mark. Author’s work.

Item	Detail
Railroad	Pittsburgh & West Virginia Railway. The Hi-Line. Mark PWV
Headquarters	Pittsburgh, in the Wabash Building
Predecessor	Wabash-Pittsburgh Terminal Railway, consolidated May 9, 1904. First train June 1, 1904. Receivership May 29, 1908
Railway	Incorporated January 29, 1917
Owned ends	Pittsburgh Junction, Ohio, to Connellsville, Pennsylvania, plus the West Side Belt to Clairton and the short branches. About 132 miles of road: 105 in Pennsylvania, 20 in Ohio, 7 in West Virginia
Connellsville	February 11, 1931, from Pierce. The handoff to the Western Maryland used a short piece of the Pittsburgh & Lake Erie
Passengers	Last train November 1, 1931. The Wabash terminal in Pittsburgh had opened April 13, 1904, and was razed in 1953–54
Lease	Norfolk & Western, 12:01 a.m., October 16, 1964. Ninety-nine years. Wheeling & Lake Erie sublease May 17, 1990
Rosters	On this page. Steam is Gus Welty’s 1956 class list. Diesels are 28 locomotives, mostly Fairbanks-Morse

The 132 miles are the long-published road mileage. The 1964 lease described a 112-mile piece of the main line and about 20 miles of branches. Information compiled September 24, 2026.

Gould’s terminal

Jay Gould, and then his son George, wanted one company from tidewater to the Pacific. West of the Mississippi the pieces were the Western Pacific, the Rio Grande, the Missouri Pacific, and the Wabash. East of Pittsburgh the piece was the Western Maryland. Between them sat the Wheeling & Lake Erie and a railroad that still had to be built: across the Northern Panhandle and into the steel city, high enough to miss the Pennsylvania’s throat.

Three little companies did the grading. Ohio chartered the Cross Creek Railroad on April 23, 1900. West Virginia chartered the Pittsburgh, Toledo & Western on April 3, 1901. Pennsylvania chartered the Pittsburgh, Carnegie & Western on July 17, 1901. They were consolidated on May 9, 1904, as the Wabash-Pittsburgh Terminal Railway. The finished main, Pittsburgh to Pittsburgh Junction, was 63.31 miles. Gus Welty, writing the railroad up for Trains in November 1956, put the first train on June 1, 1904.

The passenger house was ahead of that train. Theodore Carl Link’s Wabash Pittsburgh Terminal, Beaux-Arts, eleven stories, a dome on the roof, opened on April 13, 1904, at a cost of $800,000. It handled passengers until the trains stopped in 1931 and came down in 1953 and 1954. Andrew Carnegie used the new route, and his own Union Railroad, while he was still arguing freight rates with the Pennsylvania. The Panic of 1907 ended the larger map. The Wabash-Pittsburgh Terminal went into receivership on May 29, 1908. So did the Wheeling & Lake Erie and the Western Maryland. George Gould was out.

The Hi-Line

The property came out of foreclosure as the Pittsburgh & West Virginia Railway, incorporated on January 29, 1917. It was an independent Class I with its own mark, and it stayed that way until 1964. The nickname was the Hi-Line: the railroad rode the ridges around Pittsburgh instead of the river grades the trunk lines already owned.

The West Side Belt was the piece down to Clairton. It was inside the 1917 estate and kept its own name. The railway took over its operation on January 1, 1921. Rook Yard, on the south side, was the classification plant. From Pittsburgh Junction the line crossed the narrow neck of West Virginia, south of Weirton, and re-entered Pennsylvania near Avella, then Bridgeville, and the west belt. Coal and coke sat on the line. The bridge business, cars that neither originated nor terminated on these 132 miles, was the reason to reach Connellsville.

Official 1940 system map of the Pittsburgh and West Virginia Railway

An official system map of the Pittsburgh & West Virginia, 1940. Author’s collection.

Frank Taplin, in the 1920s, wanted more than a connection. His map was a merger of this railway with the Wheeling & Lake Erie, the Western Maryland, the Wabash, and the Lehigh Valley, a trunk the Interstate Commerce Commission would not authorize. Pennroad, the Pennsylvania Railroad’s investment company, held control of the P&WV from 1929 and had sold the stock by the end of 1955. The one piece of Taplin’s plan that was actually built was the extension east.

Connellsville

The new iron left the West Side Belt at Pierce and ran to Connellsville. It opened on February 11, 1931. It did not spike into Western Maryland rail. A short piece of the Pittsburgh & Lake Erie made the handoff, and the Western Maryland took the cars over the Connellsville Subdivision. The same year, on November 1, the P&WV discontinued passenger service. The Pacifics went to the milk trains.

A 1940 public timetable of the Pittsburgh and West Virginia Railway

A public timetable of the Pittsburgh & West Virginia, 1940. Author’s collection.

What replaced the varnish was the Alphabet Route: Nickel Plate, Wheeling & Lake Erie, this railway, Western Maryland, Reading, Jersey Central, Lehigh & Hudson River, New Haven. On the P&WV the priority trains used the whole railroad. Westbounds were AJ-1. Eastbounds were AJ-2 and AJ-12. The railway’s own symbols included MS-1, the Michigan Steeler, and BT-1. The consortium, the gateways, and the way the Jets died are the Alphabet Route page. In 1955 the railway reported about $8.6 million of operating revenue and $873,970 of net income. The 1930s had also given the line centralized traffic control.

Steam

Gus Welty’s 1956 table is the class list below. It is the railway’s own classes, including secondhand Consolidations and Mikados, not a reconstruction of every engine the Wabash-Pittsburgh Terminal owned. The gaps in class G-4 are in that table.

The modern power was the J. Baldwin’s Eddystone works built the first 2-6-6-4s anywhere for this railroad: class J-1, 1100–1102, works 61788–61790, in 1934. A Public Works Administration loan of $331,000 paid for the three. Number 1100 arrived at Rook in October 1934 under its own power, off the Baltimore & Ohio from Philadelphia, and 1101 and 1102 followed by the middle of November. They were built with 63-inch drivers, a Belpaire firebox, and a tender booster of about 16,000 pounds. The booster later came off and the drivers were enlarged to 64 inches. Class J-2, 1103–1106, followed without boosters: works 61950–61951 in 1936 and 62016–62017 in September 1937. Welty’s table rates the type at 97,500 pounds of tractive effort. They worked the heavy grades between Rook and Connellsville. Number 1100 was scrapped in 1952. The class was gone by 1953. None was saved.

The Pacifics were three very light engines for three-car trains. Class K-1, 200 and 201, came from Alco’s Brooks works in 1921: 20-by-26-inch cylinders, 180 pounds of pressure, 63-inch drivers, 25,257 pounds of tractive effort. Class K-2, 202, came from Alco’s Richmond works in 1924, two tons heavier and a little stronger. Welty’s table lists 200 and 202. Number 201 was scrapped in 1941. The other two lasted until 1947, in milk service after November 1, 1931.

Class	Type	Arrangement	Numbers	Tractive effort	Builder	Notes
B-1	Switcher	0-6-0	20	39,100 lb	Alco, 1919
G-4	Consolidation	2-8-0	910, 912, 914, 917, 919	58,620 lb	Alco, 1909	Welty’s surviving numbers
G-5	Consolidation	2-8-0	920–922	58,620 lb	Alco, 1918	Built for the West Side Belt, then leased and purchased
G-6	Consolidation	2-8-0	923–928	58,620 lb	Alco, 1921
G-7	Consolidation	2-8-0	402	53,197 lb	Juniata, 1908	Ex-Detroit, Toledo & Ironton
G-7	Consolidation	2-8-0	405	53,197 lb	Baldwin, 1910	Ex-Detroit, Toledo & Ironton
G-8	Consolidation	2-8-0	950–951	60,484 lb	Alco, 1913	Ex-Wheeling & Lake Erie
H-5	Mikado	2-8-2	1010	65,724 lb	Alco, 1918	Ex-Monon
H-6	Mikado	2-8-2	1000–1002	65,724 lb	Baldwin, 1918
H-7	Mikado	2-8-2	1050–1053	62,949 lb	Alco, 1918	Ex-Jersey Central
K-1	Pacific	4-6-2	200, 201	25,257 lb	Alco-Brooks, 1921	201 scrapped 1941. 200 lasted until 1947
K-2	Pacific	4-6-2	202	Slightly above the K-1	Alco-Richmond, 1924	Lasted until 1947. Milk trains after 1931
J-1	Articulated	2-6-6-4	1100–1102	97,500 lb	Baldwin, 1934	Works 61788–61790. First of the type. Tender booster. 1100 scrapped 1952
J-2	Articulated	2-6-6-4	1103–1106	97,500 lb	Baldwin, 1936–37	Works 61950–61951 and 62016–62017. No booster. Gone by 1953

Tractive effort and the class rows, except the third Pacific and the Baldwin works numbers, follow Welty’s November 1956 table.

Diesels

Steam was finished in 1953. The road engines that replaced the 2-6-6-4s were Fairbanks-Morse H20-44s, twenty-two of them, 50–71, delivered from October 1947 through February 1953. They look like overgrown switchers. They were 2,000-horsepower road locomotives, on B-B trucks, and this railway owned more of them than any road but the Pennsylvania. Four H16-44s, 90–93, followed in December 1956 and January 1957, after the steam was already gone. Baldwin contributed two switchers and one road-switcher: VO-1000 30 and AS-616 40.

A builder photograph of new Pittsburgh and West Virginia H20-44 54 early in 1951

H20-44 #54, early in 1951, from the 54–59 order. Company photograph.

Pittsburgh and West Virginia H20-44s at Rook, Pennsylvania, in October 1960

H20-44s at Rook, Pennsylvania, in October 1960. Roger Puta photo.

Pittsburgh and West Virginia H16-44s 90 and 91 soon after delivery from Fairbanks-Morse

H16-44s #90 and #91, late 1956 or early 1957, soon after delivery from Fairbanks-Morse.

Model	Numbers	Serial	Order	Built	Qty	Notes
Baldwin VO-1000	30	69656	—	September 13, 1943	1	To Patapsco & Back Rivers 355
Baldwin AS-616	40	75164	—	May 23, 1951	1	To Pennsylvania 8114
FM H20-44	50–51	L1038, L1039	LD40	October 1947	2	51 wrecked and scrapped in 1957. 50 to the N&W as 50
FM H20-44	52–53	20L33, 20L34	LD58	October 1948	2	To the N&W as 52–53
FM H20-44	54–59	21L51–21L56	—	January–February 1951	6	To the N&W as 54–59
FM H20-44	60–65	21L630–21L635	LD105	May 1952	6	To the N&W as 60–65
FM H20-44	66–71	21L713–21L718	LD139	February 1953	6	To the N&W. 67–69 later became Akron, Canton & Youngstown 508, 506, and 507
FM H16-44	90–93	16L1140–16L1143	—	December 1956–January 1957	4	To the N&W as 90–93

The lease

The lease with the Norfolk & Western was signed on July 12, 1962, and it took effect at 12:01 a.m. on October 16, 1964, the same morning the N&W took the Nickel Plate. The term was 99 years, renewable. From that minute the railway stopped operating trains. The N&W ran the Hi-Line, and the Alpha Jets west of Connellsville were N&W trains. In 1967 the owners put the property into the Pittsburgh and West Virginia Railroad, a real-estate trust. The trust kept the title. It did not run the railroad.

On May 17, 1990, Norfolk Southern subleased the demised line to Wheeling Acquisition Corporation, which became the new Wheeling & Lake Erie. That company is the operator. Brewster, Ohio, is still its shop town. The trust still owns the line and still collects the rent. In December 2011 it became a subsidiary of Power REIT. The trains a visitor sees between Pittsburgh Junction and Connellsville are Wheeling trains, on the railroad the Alphabet Route was built around.

Sources

Gus Welty, "Middleman of the Alphabet Route," Trains, November 1956. First train June 1, 1904. Reorganization January 29, 1917. The steam class table and its tractive-effort figures.
Locobase 301 and 7876, for the J-class works numbers and the three Pacifics, including K-1 201 and the last passenger train on November 1, 1931.
Howard Worley, Jr., and William Poellot, Jr., The Pittsburgh & West Virginia Railway, for 1100–1102 at Rook in the fall of 1934 and the Public Works Administration loan. Number 1100 scrapped in 1952.
Norfolk Southern Railway Co. v. Pittsburgh & West Virginia Railroad, U.S. District Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania. Lease dated July 12, 1962, effective October 16, 1964. Sublease May 17, 1990. The 112-mile main-line piece and about 20 miles of branches.
The Diesel Shop, Pittsburgh & West Virginia all-time roster, John Komanesky, revised October 27, 2020, from Extra 2200 South. Fairbanks-Morse contract numbers from this site’s H20-44 roster where the serial agrees.
Alphabet Route, for February 11, 1931, the Pittsburgh & Lake Erie handoff at Connellsville, and the Alpha Jet symbols.