Pittsburgh and Lake Erie Railroad

The Pittsburgh and Lake Erie Railroad, also known as the "Little Giant", was a railroad. It was formed on May 11, 1875. Company headquarters were located in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The line connected Pittsburgh in the east with Youngstown, Ohio, in the Haselton neighborhood in the west and Connellsville, Pennsylvania, to the east. It did not reach Lake Erie until the formation of Conrail in 1976. The P&LE was known as the "Little Giant" since the tonnage that it moved was out of proportion to its route mileage. While it operated around one tenth of one percent of the nation's railroad miles, it hauled around one percent of its tonnage. This was largely because the P&LE served the steel mills of the greater Pittsburgh area, which consumed and shipped vast amounts of materials. It was a specialized railroad, deriving much of its revenue from coal, coke, iron ore, limestone, and steel. The eventual closure of the steel mills led to the end of the P&LE as an independent line in 1992.
At the end of 1970 P&LE operated of road on of track, not including PC&Y and Y&S; in 1970 it reported 1419 million ton-miles of revenue freight, down from 2437 million in 1944.

Route of the P&LE

The P&LE purchased many smaller railroads that operated in the areas of its main train line extending the line north to Youngstown and south to Connellsville. This provided a means of transportation from the steel centers of Pittsburgh to the Great Lakes and St. Lawrence Seaway area.

P&LE Division

The original line ran between Youngstown, Ohio and 24th Street in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania near the Jones and Laughlin Iron Works, opened in 1879. The P&LE's passenger terminal in Pittsburgh was on the south bank of the Monongahela River, at the foot of the Smithfield Street Bridge.
The P&LE followed the left downstream bank of the Monongahela River past the terminal to the Golden Triangle, where that waterway meets the Allegheny River and becomes the Ohio River. The railroad continued northwest along the left downstream bank of the Ohio River to the vicinity of Beaver, Pennsylvania, where it crossed the river on the Beaver Bridge. From there it followed the Beaver River to just south of New Castle, Pennsylvania, where it then followed the Mahoning River west-northwest, crossing into Ohio just east of Lowellville. From there it ran northwest into Youngstown, terminating at a junction with the New York Central known as Haselton.
In the table below, mileage is reckoned westbound from the P&LE Terminal in Pittsburgh. The original line continued east past that station for a little over to near 24th Street in the South Side Flats neighborhood of Pittsburgh, where it met the Monongahela Connecting Railroad and the Pittsburgh, McKeesport & Youghiogheny.

Youghiogheny Branch

The Pittsburgh, McKeesport and Youghiogheny Railroad ran from 24th Street in Pittsburgh, PA to Connellsville, Pennsylvania, in 1882. The PM&Y followed the Monongahela River to McKeesport, Pennsylvania, then the Youghiogheny River to Connellsville, Pennsylvania.
Mileage on this P&LE branch was reckoned from the passenger terminal back at the Smithfield Street Bridge.

Monongahela Branch

The Pittsburgh, McKeesport & Youghiogheny Railroad also followed the Monongahela River to Brownsville, Pennsylvania.

State	Milepost	City	Station	Lat/long	Old Telegraph Call Letters	Connections and notes
PA	16	Port Vue	Belle Vernon Junction
PA	18	Glassport	Glassport
PA	20		Pollock
PA	22	Elizabeth	Wylie Elizabeth
PA	27		Bunola
PA	31	East Monongahela	Monongahela
PA	33		Manown
PA	34		Sunnyside
PA	36		Sheppler
PA	40	Monessen	Monessen
PA	42		East Charleroi
PA	43		Belle Vernon
PA	45	Fayette City	Fayette City
PA	50		Newell
PA	54		Brownsville Junction			JCT with Monongahela Railway

History

The Pittsburgh and Lake Erie Railroad was the creation of William McCreery, a prominent Pittsburgh businessman, merchant, and railroad builder. McCreery had suffered at the hands of the Pennsylvania Railroad in a business that had a loss or failed. The Pennsylvania Railroad at the time used discriminatory rates which became a hot issue in Pittsburgh. On May 11, 1870 McCreery and ten other people filed Articles of Association with the Pennsylvania Secretary of State. The stated length of the railroad was for. After 2 years the starting group was not very successful at raising the required funds and in 1877 many of the directors were succeeded by a new group of Pittsburgh businessmen. The new group was James I. Bennett, David Hostetter, James M. Baily, Mark W. Watson and James M. Schoonmaker, all influential.
In the spring of 1877, the first rails were laid down in Beaver Falls, which had the largest population other than Pittsburgh. The other reason for this was around February 1877 Jacob Henrici of the Harmony Society had business there. Henrici would also become a director in 1877. On July 6, 1877, McCreery resigned and Bennett was elected to president with Jacob Henrici becoming a director. Henrici was the key due to his Harmony Society ties which was a communal religious group founded in 1805. In 1880, William Henry Vanderbilt's Lake Shore and Michigan Southern Railway bought stock to the tune of $200,000 in the P&LE. The P&LE would stay in the Vanderbilt's New York Central system until Conrail. Also in 1877, an agreement between the P&LE and the Atlantic & Great Western and the Lake Shore and Michigan Southern Railway was reached for routing traffic at Youngstown, Ohio. The final track laying between Pittsburgh and Youngstown was on January 27, 1879. At the opening in 1879, the P&LE was a poorly built, single track line. Fortunately for the railroad it was an immediate success and money was soon available for improvements.

South Penn and Pittsburgh, McKeesport and Youghiogheny Railroad

In 1881, the P&LE became linked with the notorious South Pennsylvania Railroad. This would lead to William Henry Vanderbilt to control of the P&LE as a link in the South Penn and the building of the Pittsburgh, McKeesport and Youghiogheny Railroad. The South Pennsylvania Railroad was planned to connect to the PM&Y. Vanderbilt did this by buying Henry W. Oliver's and the Harmony Society's stock in the P&LE. Then Vanderbilt, aided by Andrew Carnegie, advanced the PM&Y all of the funds to build to Connellsville, Pennsylvania and then lease it to the P&LE for 99 years. The PM&Y in the end was the only part of the South Penn that was built, but it would be an important part of the P&LE. The PM&Y opened in 1883 and leased to the P&LE in 1884.
Concurrently in 1883, to get the P&LE ready for the expected new business due to the South Penn linkage, the McKees Rocks shops were built.

Vanderbilt and the "Little Giant"

The company came under more formal control in 1887 by the New York Central Railroad. Lake Shore and Michigan Southern Railway's president, John Newell, took over as president of the P&LE in 1887. Under Newell, Reed and Colonel Schoonmaker; the P&LE would become the "Little Giant". From 1887 to 1927, the P&LE would become a heavy duty railroad, with double track all the way from Pittsburgh to Youngstown.
The P&LE operated as an independent subsidiary, even after New York Central and Pennsylvania Railroad merged to form Penn Central.

PM&Y and the Monongahela Railway

The making of coke in Connellsville had been a big part of P&LE traffic, but by the early 20th century it had lessened. The development of by-products distillation processing of coke had moved to the Pittsburgh area. The P&LE then extended up the Monongahela River to Brownsville, Pennsylvania in 1901. The Pennsylvania Railroad at the same time had extended to Brownsville. Both the PRR and the P&LE had plans to extend even further up the river into West Virginia coke fields. Most likely due to the South Penn, they decided to work together by using the Monongahela Railway. The Monongahela Railway then was extended south to Martin, Pennsylvania reaching the Kondike Coke fields. Later in 1915 it reached Fairmont, West Virginia.

Conrail and CSX

When Conrail was formed, the Pittsburgh and Lake Erie Railroad again became an independent company because P&LE was owed $15.2 million by Penn Central, and operated as such until its merger into CSX Transportation.
Starting in 1934, the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad bought trackage rights over P&LE from McKeesport to New Castle. The B&O's route through Pittsburgh had excessive grades and curves. In the last years of the P&LE, CSX used the line more than P&LE leading to the merger. Most of the online customers had long been gone, with only the main line still intact. In 1993 the company was purchased by CSX. The CSX designated the P&LE as a new subsidiary, the Three Rivers Railway. However, in 1993, CSX leased the TRR, and there is currently no de facto distinction between the former P&LE and any other portion of CSX's system.
The portion of the P&LE main line from New Castle, PA to Youngstown, OH has been abandoned and removed in favor of the parallel B&O line.