Parkersburg Branch Railroad Company stock certificate circa 1865 (West Virginia)

Early West Virginia railroad collectible. Interesting vignette of people in the foreground greeting a period steam train. Unissued and not cancelled. Dated 18__. Incorporated 1865 in West Virginia. Measures approximately 10 x 6.5 inches.   

The Parkersburg Branch Railroad started operations in 1865 and stopped service in 1912. This line was part of the Baltimore and Ohio main line from Washington to St. Louis. It ran from Parkersburg to Clarksburg with 13 tunnels on the way.

The North Western Virginia Railroad was chartered by the Virginia General Assembly as the Northwestern Virginia Railroad on February 14, 1851 to build track from Grafton, West Virginia to Parkersburg, West Virginia. Future statehood advocate and U.S. Senator Peter G. Van Winkle of Parkersburg began as the Northwestern Railroad's secretary in 1852 and served as its President through the American Civil War. This railroad becomes the Parkersburg Branch Railroad in 1865 and is listed as such in Poor's Manual of Railroads; the entire issue of preferred Stock owned by Baltimore and Ohio Railroad. 

Baltimore and Ohio Railroad was founded to serve merchants from Baltimore who wanted to do business with settlers crossing the Appalachian Mountains. It would compete with several existing and proposed turnpikes and canals, including the Erie and Chesapeake and Ohio Canal. Building west from the port of Baltimore, the B&O reached Sandy Hook, Maryland, in 1834; Cumberland in 1842; the Ohio River at Moundsville, Virginia, in 1852; Wheeling in 1853, and in 1857, Parkersburg, Virginia (now WV), below rapids that made navigation difficult during parts of the year.

The railroad, whose owners were Union sympathizers, proved crucial to the North's success during the American Civil War, which caused considerable damage to the system. After the Civil War, the B&O consolidated several feeder lines in Virginia and West Virginia, and expanded westward into Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois.

The Chesapeake and Ohio Railway took financial control of the B&O in 1963. On May 1, 1971, Amtrak had taken over all of the remaining non-commuter routes of the B&O. The B&O already had a controlling interest in the Western Maryland Railway. In 1973 the three railroads were brought together under one corporate identity, the Chessie System, although they continued to operate as separate railroads. In 1980 the Chessie System and Seaboard Coast Line Industries, a holding company that owned the Seaboard Coast Line, the Louisville & Nashville, the Clinchfield, and the Georgia Railroad, agreed to form CSX Corporation. SCL Industries was renamed the Seaboard System Railroad (SBD) in 1983, the same year that the Western Maryland Railway was completely absorbed into the B&O. SBD was renamed CSX Transportation (CSX) in 1986. On April 30, 1987, the B&O's corporate existence ended when it was absorbed into the Chesapeake and Ohio Railway, which merged into CSX Transportation on August 31 of that year.

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