The South Pennsylvania Railroad is the name given to two proposed, but never completed, railroads in Pennsylvania during the 19th century. Parts of the right of way for the second South Pennsylvania Railroad were reused for the Pennsylvania Turnpike in 1940.
Initial promotions
The first South Pennsylvania Railroad was originally chartered as the Duncannon, Landisburg, and Broad Top Railroad Company on May 5, 1854.[1] Its intended route began in Duncannon, passed through Landisburg and Burnt Cabins and ended on the Juniata River via the Broad Top Mountain coalfields. On May 5, 1855, it was renamed the Sherman's Valley and Broad Top Railroad Company, and the planned eastern terminus was changed from Duncannon to the mouth of Fishing Creek, in Perry County near Marysville, in order to connect with the Pennsylvania Railroad.[1] Another amendment to the charter on May 12, 1857, allowed it to connect with the Allegheny Portage Railroad and the Pittsburgh and Connellsville Railroad.[1] Around this time, two miles of the proposed route were in fact graded. On March 31, 1859, it was given the grandiose name of Pennsylvania Pacific Railway Company, with the rights to extend into Maryland and Virginia.[1] On April 1, 1863, it was renamed as the South Pennsylvania Railroad Company.[1]
Vanderbilt syndicate
New York Central and Pennsylvania Railroad competition
The unused charter of the defunct South Pennsylvania Railroad was revived in the 1880s as a weapon in a growing war between the New York Central Railroad and the Pennsylvania Railroad: the two major Eastern railroad systems. William H. Vanderbilt, who controlled the New York Central, learned that the Pennsylvania had obtained control of the New York, West Shore and Buffalo Railway: a newly built railroad whose line paralleled the route of the New York Central between New York City and Buffalo. Vanderbilt viewed the West Shore project as a Pennsylvania Railroad incursion into prime New York Central territory and a threat to the Central's supremacy in the area.
To retaliate, Vanderbilt allied himself with Pittsburgh capitalists, including Andrew Carnegie and Henry Clay Frick, who were anxious to break the Pennsylvania Railroad's freight monopoly in Pittsburgh and western Pennsylvania. Vanderbilt, the Pittsburghers and other investors formed a syndicate to finance and build a new mainline railroad across the Alleghenies that would connect Pittsburgh with Harrisburg, and, working jointly with the Philadelphia and Reading Railway, would form a route to the East Coast. The group used the long-inactive charter of the South Pennsylvania Railroad as its vehicle to begin constructing the railroad.[2]
Pennsylvania Turnpike
The route was revived during the Great Depression, when plans were made to build a superhighway across Pennsylvania. In 1937, the new Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission bought the old line from the two railroads and, in 1938, construction began between Carlisle and Irwin. Two of the workers from the South Pennsylvania Railroad project (one contractor and one laborer) also worked on the Turnpike despite the 54-year time difference in construction.
The turnpike's original route was opened in October 1940, using six of the railroad's nine tunnels (subsequent route re-alignments have caused some of these tunnels to be abandoned), while the original Allegheny Mountain Tunnel wasn't used due to structural concerns and the Quemahoning Tunnel and Negro Mountain Tunnel were bypassed because advances in engineering since the 1880s allowed for bypasses. The highway engineers did not use most of the railroad's other grading, however, since they could afford steeper grades and shorter alignments. Because of this, relics of the "ghost railroad" may still be found all across the Alleghenies.
External links
References
- Report on the South Pennsylvania Railroad: Also, Its Charter and Supplements Sieg, 1869, retrieved June 19, 2020^
- The Road of the Century • Chapter 14^
- Engineering News and American Contract Journal 1883^