Avoiding void pantograph
If the Pennsylvania Railroad did not raise enough capital and contract to build enough railroad within a year, then the B&O bill would become effective and the Pennsy's void, thereby allowing the B&O to build into Pennsylvania and on to Pittsburgh. Both applications were granted under conditions. The second was the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad (B&O), which wanted to build to Pittsburgh from Cumberland, Maryland. The first was for a new railroad called The Pennsylvania Railroad Company to build a line between Harrisburg and Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. There were two applications made to the Pennsylvania legislature in 1846. Because freight and passengers had to change cars several times along the route and canals froze in winter, it soon became apparent that the system was cumbersome and a better way was needed. The route consisted of the Philadelphia and Columbia Railroad, canals up the Susquehanna and Juniata rivers, an inclined plane railroad called the Allegheny Portage Railroad, a tunnel across the Allegheny Mountains, and canals down the Conemaugh and Allegheny rivers to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, on the Ohio River it was completed in 1834.
#AVOIDING VOID PANTOGRAPH SERIES#
It soon became evident that a single canal would not be practical and a series of railroads, inclined planes, and canals was proposed. The state legislature was pressed to build a canal across Pennsylvania and thus the Main Line of Public Works was commissioned in 1826. With the opening of the Erie Canal in 1825 and the beginnings of the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal in 1828, Philadelphia business interests became concerned that the port of Philadelphia would lose traffic. US passenger carrier Amtrak received the electrified segment of the Main Line east of Harrisburg.Īfter 1976, the railroad eventually became an insurance company and now goes by the name of American Premier Underwriters and is now a subsidiary of American Financial Group. Conrail was itself purchased and split up in 1999 with 58 percent of the system going to the Norfolk Southern Railway (NS), including nearly all of the remaining former Pennsylvania Railroad.
In 1968, the Pennsylvania Railroad absorbed its rival New York Central Railroad and the railroad eventually went by the name of Penn Central Transportation Company, or "Penn Central" for short, the railroad filed for bankruptcy within two years.īankruptcy continued and on April 1, 1976, the railroad gave up its railroad assets, along with the assets of several other failing northeastern railroads, to a new railroad named Consolidated Rail Corporation, or Conrail for short.
Its only formidable rival was the New York Central (NYC), which carried around three-quarters of the Pennsy's ton-miles. At the end of 1926, it operated 11,640.66 miles (18,733.83 kilometers) of rail line in the 1920s, it carried nearly three times the traffic as other railroads of comparable length, such as the Union Pacific and Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe railroads. Over the years, it acquired, merged with or owned part of at least 800 other rail lines and companies. The corporation still holds the record for the longest continuous dividend history: it paid out annual dividends to shareholders for more than 100 consecutive years.
It was so named because it was established in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.īy 1882, the Pennsylvania Railroad had become the largest railroad (by traffic and revenue), the largest transportation enterprise, and the largest corporation in the world. 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 was headquartered in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.