The Baltimore and Ohio Railroad (reporting mark BO) was the first common carrier railroad and the oldest railroad in the United States with its first section opening in 1830. Merchants from Baltimore, which had benefited to some extent from the construction of the National Road early in the century, wanted to do business with settlers crossing the Appalachian Mountains.
The New Haven and Northampton Railroad (founded as the New Haven and Northampton Company, also known as the Canal Line) was a railroad originally built alongside a canal between 1847 and 1850 in Connecticut.
The Cumberland Valley Railroad (reporting mark CVRR)[1] was an early railroad in Pennsylvania, United States, originally chartered in 1831 to connect with Pennsylvania's Main Line of Public Works.
The Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, Chicago and St. Louis Railroad, commonly called the Pan Handle Route (Panhandle Route in later days), was a railroad that was part of the Pennsylvania Railroad system.
The Pennsylvania Railroad had a total investment of $5,633,000 in the three companies, decided to consolidate the Panhandle, the Steubenville and Indiana and the Holliday’s Cove Rail Road into one company with a line from Pittsburgh to Columbus, a distance of 193 miles. It caused The Pittsburg, Cincinnati and St. Louis Railway Company to be organized on May 14, 1868, and the three predecessor companies were thus consolidated. The new consolidated company continued to be known colloquially as the “Panhandle”, by which name it and its successors will hereafter be frequently referred to.