Portal:Trains/Selected article/Week 36, 2021

The Cumberland Valley Railroad 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. 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.