Talk:Wabash Railroad

Reason for the move to Wabash Railway

Search http://www.earlpleasants.com/search_1.asp for Wabash Railway (sources for that site are Poor's and Moody's manuals, and official documents):

MC1940 This company is successor, October 15, 1915, to the Wabash Railroad, which was sold at foreclosure July 21, 1915. The New Company taking possesion of the property November 1, 1915. Trackage rights: Ann Arbor Railroad, Milan, Michigan and Manhattan Junction, Ohio, December 1, 1924. Leased Lafayette Union Railway for 30 years from September, 1929. Acquired control of Ann Arbor Railroad, May 19, 1925. Acquired control of Lake Erie & Fort Wayne Railroad, April 30, 1929. Applied to ICC for authority to Purchase control of Wheeling & Lake Erie Railroad. Withdrew application, June 14, 1930. This Company owns 21% of the stock of the Lehigh Valley Railroad. Owns one-third of American Refrigerator Transit Company. Owns and controls Wabash Car & Equipment Company. Wabash Railway leases Wabash-Hannibal Bridge Company. Wabash-St. Charles Bridge Company leased to Wabash Railway, for 99 years, from March 1, 1935, Receiver appointed, December 1, 1931. This Company was succeeded by the Wabash Railroad Corporation, September 2, 1937. This Company leases the Chicago & Western Indiana Railroad jointly with Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railway, Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific Railway, Illinois Central Railroad,Pennsylvania Railroad, Chicago, Burlington & Quincy Railroad, Minneapolis, St. Paul & Sault Ste. Marie Railway, Chesapeake & Ohio Railway, Grand Trunk Western Railroad, Wabash Railway, Chicago & Erie Railroad, Chicago, Indianapolis & Louisville Railway, Chicago & Eastern Illinois Railway and Pere Marquette Railway. HG Wabash Railway and Delaware & Hudson Railroad purchased control of Lehigh Valley Railroad 1928. Pennsylvania Railroad owned 87% of Wabash Railway by 1963. Pennsylvania divested itself of Wabash stock before Penn-Central merger. Wabash Railway leased to Norfolk & Western Railway 10/16/1964. Norfolk & Western Railway acquired control of Wabash 3/31/1970.

All that's in there for Wabash, St. Louis and Pacific Railway (note the railway) is:

P1885 Chicago, Burlington & Quincy Railroad owns 1/2. M1940 This Company was a consolidation, in 1879, of: Wabash Railway I. St. Louis, Kansas City & Northern Railway. In 1889, this Company was reorganized under the name of Wabash Railroad Company. PMRL1 Consolidation 11/7/1879 of: Wabash Railroad. St. Louis, Kansas City & Northern Railway. HG Succeeded by Wabash Railroad 1889.

Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

The Wabash Terminal was destroyed by fire on March 22, 1946. The area was soon rebuilt and transformed into a modern metrapolis. TooPotato 12:12, 8 September 2005 (UTC)

It looks like the Pittsburgh and West Virginia Railway was not actually part of the Wabash, but part of an aborted plan for it to reach Pittsburgh. It acted on its own as part of the Alphabet Route. The Wabash definitely entered New York though via trackage rights. [1] is a decent map of the Wabash's territory. --SPUI (talk) 14:22, 8 September 2005 (UTC)

According to a book printed in 1926, Carnegie, Pennsylvania is 5 miles southwest of Pittsburgh on the Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, Chicago, and St. Louis, the Pittsburgh, Chartiers, and Youghiogheny, and the Wabash Pittsburgh Terminal railroads. The book published in 1975 (I had cited it on 8 September, above) states that on March 6, 1946, a $200,000 five-alarm fire destroyed a building-supply building at 410 Liberty Avenue (close to where the Ohio River begins), and flames spread to the nearby Pittsburgh and West Virginia Railroad trestle and the old Wabash Terminal.

The same book says that on October 19, 1903, the Wabash bridge over the Monongahela river collapsed; on February 4, 1904, City Councils passed an ordinance permitting the Wabash Railroad to enter the city; and that on July 2, 1904, George Jay Gould's Wabash Railroad operated its first train out of Pittsburgh - a special to the World's Fair in St. Louis. In 1905, George Jay Gould built his ornate Wabash Railroad terminal and 11-story office building on Liberty avenue.

A post office in the western part of Pittsburgh (west of the Ohio River) is named Wabash (Zip Code, 15220). The area is called Wabash. I think that the Wabash bridge across the Monongahela river carried trains to the Wabash tunnel, which now is used by high-occupancy vehicles with three or more persons inside. .

George Jay Gould may have been a descendant of Jay Gould, (1836-92), a titan of the railroad business. An encyclopedia article states that in 1880, he controlled fully 10,000 miles of road, more than one-ninth of the mileage of the country. TooPotato 18:38, 12 September 2005 (UTC)

Nicely argued, TooPotato. What book is the 1975 edition that you mention? I don't see a bibliographic reference. I wonder, however, if the Wabash Pittsburgh Terminal was a subsidiary much like the Baltimore and Ohio Chicago Terminal Railroad was a subsidiary of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad. I've seen many places in my own research where a larger railroad creates a subsidiary railroad to make a connection to a city in a state that it does not yet serve, and then once the connection is made, the subsidiary is legally merged into the parent to simplify operations. The Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway, for example, did this in several locations through the southwest on its way to Los Angeles and San Francisco. Golly, now I'll have to take another look at my own resources again... slambo 20:24, September 12, 2005 (UTC)

The 1975 book is copyrighted, therefore I'm wary about discussing it, but, nevertheless I will reveal its title: Pittsburgh the Story of an American City, by Stefan Lorant (who had written his first book in 1934). The book is a "Bicentennial edition" and it is (Library of Congress Catalog Card Number CCN 75-24970) a revised, enlarged, and updated version of the 1964 book. 608 total pages, with a photograph of the Wabash Terminal being doused with water by firemen as it burned. The photograph is on page 385. The book contains hundreds of photographs, etc. I used the 1926 book to start the article Helen Gould (philanthropist). The old book is no longer in print. TooPotato 21:57, 12 September 2005 (UTC)

However in this case it appears that the Wabash overextended itself and pulled out of Pittsburgh, turning that operation over the the P&WV. --SPUI (talk) 22:32, 12 September 2005 (UTC)

Tune in to the Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania article, and then view its "panorama in 1920". The rusty old bridge at the center of the image is (almost certainly) the Wabash Railroad bridge. The bridge was not dismantled until circa 1950, so photographs taken from 1905-1950 include the bridge. Two sturdy old piers still exist. One of the old piers was decorated with flags during the U.S.A. bicentennial year of 1976.

Pittsburgh, the Story of an American City is a sturdy book which is almost certainly available to people who have access to the "lending library" network of libraries which lend books to one another whenever a request is made. TooPotato 14:17, 13 September 2005 (UTC)

It's actually the Wabash Bridge - see [2]. The name refers to its original use as part of the planned extension of the Wabash. [3] has some information - "In 1908, the Wabash was forced to go into receivership, and in 1917, the local spur was absorbed by the Pittsburgh and West Virginia Railroad." --SPUI (talk) 15:14, 13 September 2005 (UTC)

Move

Bah, it was this after 1941. --SPUI (talk) 10:03, 24 September 2005 (UTC)

Discision

Page moved. Ryan Norton ^{T | @ | C} 02:06, 15 October 2005 (UTC)

Exactly how did this rail road end?

The events of 1964 are not well-described; it's not clear which railroad the Wabash ended up as part of at that point. Mangoe 22:03, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

In central Illinois

In the 60's the Wabash railroad became the Norfolk and Western. LAMoore54 (talk) 15:41, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

More expertise needed

Hey guys, I've just improved the formatting and layout of this long-neglected article, so I think it's a little easier to get through now. But I have some concerns about accuracy and sourcing in several parts of the article, and I'm also concerned about the accuracy of the merger tree I made from two separate trees that were already here, but not connected.

I used the somewhat hard-to-follow text of the article as a guide to merging them - but the Wabash is not one of my pet roads, so I hope someone with more expertise will have a look at things, make any needed corrections, and find some more sources to verify the different parts of this article. Textorus (talk) 11:25, 4 September 2010 (UTC)