Post Bellum
Following the war, in 1866, control of the railroad was returned to the company and stock holders, who decided to lease the right–of-way to the B&O Railroad. In 1870 the new Winchester and Strasburg Railroad was built, which connected Harpers Ferry to the Manassas Gap Railroad at Strasburg, enabling a connection southwest up the Shenandoah Valley to Harrisonburg. Eventually the Baltimore & Ohio "purchased the Winchester & Potomac" and "constructed a line the length of the Valley" to Lexington, where it joined a spur of the Chesapeake and Ohio Railroad. Throughout the Reconstruction era, northern railroad companies were able to charter new lines and construct railroads that connected the entire Shenandoah Valley north into Pennsylvania, and south into Tennessee and North Carolina.
In 1896 the United States Supreme Court ruled in a lawsuit, overturning a previous judgment in favor of W&P Railroad Company for $30,340, for the value of the iron rails that were removed in 1862 during the Civil War. The W&P claimed that its stock owners were loyal citizens during the war, and that the United States had taken possession and control of the valley up to Winchester, and then had removed its strap and T-rails over to the Manassas Gap Railroad for service, as well as storage in Alexandria, and they were never returned. Furthermore, W&P had paid Manassas Gap $25,000 in 1874 for rails that had been put on to the W&P.
Read more about this topic: Winchester And Potomac Railroad, Founding and Early History
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