Cumberland Valley Railroad
The Cumberland Valley Railroad (reporting mark CVRR) was an early railroad in Pennsylvania, United States, originally chartered in 1831 to connect with Pennsylvania's Main Line of Public Works. Freight and passenger service in the Cumberland Valley in south central Pennsylvania from near Harrisburg to Chambersburg began in 1837, with service later extended to Hagerstown, Maryland, and then extending into the Shenandoah Valley to Winchester, Virginia. It employed up to 1,800 workers.
CVRR station and offices in Chambersburg, Pennsylvania | |||
| Overview | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Headquarters | Chambersburg, Pennsylvania | ||
| Reporting mark | CVRR | ||
| Locale | U.S. states of Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia and West Virginia | ||
| Dates of operation | 1837–1919 | ||
| Successor | Pennsylvania Railroad | ||
| Technical | |||
| Track gauge | 4 ft 8+1⁄2 in (1,435 mm) standard gauge | ||
| |||
During the American Civil War the line had strategic importance in supplying Union troops in the Shenandoah Valley. It also ran the first passenger sleeping car in the U.S. on the Chambersburg-Harrisburg route in 1839. The Pennsylvania Railroad (PRR) gained control of the CVRR as early as 1859, and officially purchased it on June 2, 1919. The PRR's successor, the Penn Central, closed all railway facilities in Chambersburg in 1972 and its successor, Conrail, abandoned major pieces of the line in 1981.