Wheeling and Lake Erie Railway (1990) - History

History

In 1990, the Norfolk and Western Railway, a subsidiary of the Norfolk Southern Railway, sold portions of its lines in Ohio and Pennsylvania, including most of the lines of the former W&LE and the Akron, Canton and Youngstown Railroad, as well as a lease on the Pittsburgh and West Virginia Railroad, to the Wheeling Acquisition Corporation. The name was changed to the Wheeling and Lake Erie Railway in May, before operations began. At its formation, trackage rights on Norfolk Southern were extended to the new organization to serve several limestone quarries in the Bellevue, Ohio area and with CSX Transportation from Connellsville, Pennsylvania to Hagerstown, Maryland, a remnant of the old Alphabet Route of which the original W&LE was a part. W&LE also maintains trackage rights from Wellington to Cleveland on CSX.

The only portions of the original W&LE operated by companies other than the current W&LE are the NS line west of Bellevue (W&LE now has trackage rights to Toledo on this line, obtained after the Conrail split in 1999); the former Cleveland Division line south of Harmon (Brewster) that was sold to Ohio Central Railroad by NS in 1988, and the Huron docks trackage.

W&LE still serves the Huron Docks using trackage rights on NS's former Nickel Plate Road line from Bellevue and a connecting line to the docks built by the NKP in 1952. A few other small portions of the original W&LE and AC&Y have been abandoned and/or replaced with trackage rights on parallel lines by W&LE.

Read more about this topic:  Wheeling And Lake Erie Railway (1990)

Famous quotes containing the word history:

    It takes a great deal of history to produce a little literature.
    Henry James (1843–1916)

    All history and art are against us, but we still expect happiness in love.
    Mason Cooley (b. 1927)

    Properly speaking, history is nothing but the crimes and misfortunes of the human race.
    Pierre Bayle (1647–1706)