Wheeling
and Lake Erie Railway - (en)
The original Wheeling and Lake Erie Railway's (AAR reporting marks WLE)
oldest predecessor rail line began in Ohio, with the organization of
the Carroll County Rail Road on March 9, 1850.
The Wheeling and Lake Erie Railroad was established on April 6, 1871
and was first built as a 3-foot narrow gauge line between Norwalk,
Ohio and Huron, Ohio. Service began on the new line on May 31, 1877.
However, the new road was unable to attract regular traffic, or
financing for expansion, and had closed within two years.
With investment by railroad financier Jay Gould in 1880 and financial
reorganization, the line was converted to standard gauge and
construction began again. Service from Huron to Massillon, Ohio was
opened on January 9, 1882 and new lines were constructed that
eventually reached the Ohio River and Toledo. The WLE also developed
new docks on Lake Erie at Huron that opened May 21, 1884 when the
first cargo of iron ore was received.
In 1880 another 3-foot narrow gauge line, the Connotton Valley Railway,
was formed, building north from Canton to Cleveland and then south to
Coshocton and Zanesville. The Connotton Valley became the Cleveland,
Canton & Southern Railroad and was converted to standard gauge in
one day on November 18, 1888. The Cleveland, Canton & Southern
Railroad joined the WLE in 1899 after its purchase at foreclosure sale,
becoming WLE's Cleveland Division.
At its height, the WLE ran from the Pittsburgh region (through a
connection with the Wabash-Pittsburgh Terminal, later the Pittsburgh
and West Virginia Railway) to Lake Erie at Huron and Toledo. However,
the mainlines of the WLE never reached outside Ohio's borders. It also
ran from Cleveland to Zanesville, with the lines crossing at Harmon,
just east of Brewster, Ohio, which became the location of WLE's
corporate headquarters and locomotive shops. With two busy main stems
crossing on the map of Ohio; the road's nickname for many years was
"The Iron Cross." Ironically, the mainline of the WLE never
actually reached Wheeling, West Virginia. However, a branch between
Steubenville and Martins Ferry, Ohio was completed in 1891, which led
to an indirect connection to Wheeling via a subsidiary, the Wheeling
Bridge and Terminal Company.
The WLE began producing locomotives at its Brewster, Ohio shops in
1910, and boasted one of the finest locomotive producing facilities in
the country. Over the years, the WLE built and rolled boilers and
erected fifty of their own steam engines, a feat never tried by many
larger and more famous railroads.
The Wheeling & Lake Erie was jokingly called the “Wailing and
Leg Weary” but, after several early financial embarrassments,
finally found prosperity in its later life. The WLE was leased by the
Nickel Plate Road (NKP) in 1949. The Nickel Plate Road merged with
Norfolk and Western Railway in 1964. Norfolk and Western merged with
the Southern Railway in 1982, forming the Norfolk Southern Railway
(NS).
Re-birth as a regional
railway in 1990
On June 1, 1990; Norfolk Southern Railway sold portions of their lines
in Ohio and Pennsylvania, including most of the original lines of the
former WLE, the Akron, Canton and Youngstown Railroad and the
Pittsburgh and West Virginia Railway to a new regional railroad,
taking the name of the Wheeling and Lake Erie Railway (AAR reporting
marks WE) that operates today. 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
WLE was a part.
The only portions of the original WLE not owned by the current WE are
the NS line west of Bellevue, (though WE 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 Railway (OHCR) by NS in 1986, and the Huron, Ohio
docks trackage.
The Huron Branch, WLE's first line between Norwalk and Huron, was
acquired by WE but was never activated north of the Norwalk city
limits and was later removed in its entirety. WE still serves the
Huron Docks using trackage rights on NS' 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 WLE have been
abandoned and/or replaced with trackage rights on parallel lines by
WE.
WE also has trackage rights to Lima, Ohio, that originally used CSX
lines from Carey to Upper Sandusky to Lima, but after the lease of the
CSX line (the former Pennsylvania Railroad main line) by RailAmerica's
Chicago, Fort Wayne and Eastern (CF&E), WE now uses trackage
rights from its lines at New London to Crestline, Ohio on CSX, then
west on the CF&E to Lima. These trackage rights were also a result
of the Conrail split.
WE Locomotive #200 at Monroeville, Ohio, July 8, 2006WE lines
interchange with three major Class I railroads (Canadian National, CSX,
and Norfolk Southern). Many of the major commodities remain the same
as in the early days: coal from southeastern Ohio; iron ore from the
Great Lakes region; steel from five different mills; aggregates from
four quarries; plus chemicals, forest products, and grain, generating
approximately 130,000 carloads annually.
Branch lines reach as far south as Benwood, West Virginia (just south
of Wheeling) and as far east as Connellsville, Pennsylvania. The WE
joins the Southwestern Pennsylvania Railroad at Owensdale,
Pennsylvania. The WE currently operates about 850 miles of track.
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