In 1835, a highly profitable branch was opened to Washington, while early in the following year, trains were running through to Harpers Ferry, at the mouth of the Shenandoah.
During that same Summer of 1835, definite steps were taken toward the extension of the railroad to Pittsburgh, as well as Wheeling. But it was three years later before the struggling company was ready to make a surveying reconnaissance of these extensions of the road. All through that time actual construction work was slowly but quite surely progressing westward from Harpers Ferry, and on November 5, 1842, trains entered Cumberland, the one-time objective point of the enterprise.
[Illustration: AN EARLY LOCOMOTIVE BUILT BY WILLIAM NORRIS FOR THE PHILADELPHIA & READING RAILROAD]
[Illustration: THE HISTORIC "JOHN BULL" OF THE CAMDEN & AMBOY RAILROAD--AND ITS TRAIN]
[Illustration: A HEAVY-GRADE TYPE OF LOCOMOTIVE BUILT FOR THE BALTIMORE & OHIO RAILROAD IN 1864. ITS FLARING STACK WAS TYPICAL OF THOSE YEARS]
But beyond Cumberland the road gradually left the comfortable valley of the Potomac, and these early railroad builders found themselves confronted with new difficulties. To build a railroad across the range of the Appalachians, with the primitive methods and machinery of those days was no simple task. For nine years the construction work dragged. In 1851 the line had only been finished to Piedmont, twenty-nine miles west of Cumberland, and its builders were well-nigh discouraged. Let us quote from the ancient history of the B. & O., from which we derive these facts, in an exact paragraph:
"In the Fall of 1851, the Board found themselves, almost without warning, in the midst of a financial crisis, with a family of more than 5,000 laborers and 1,200 horses to be provided for, while their treasury was rapidly growing weaker. The commercial existence of the city of Baltimore depended on the prompt and successful prosecution of the unfinished road."
In October, 1852, it was found that there had been expended for construction west of Cumberland, $7,217,732.51. But the road was going ahead once more. Its Board had dug deep into their pockets and the commercial crisis that hovered over Baltimore was passed. Two years later the road entered Wheeling, and its corporate title was no longer a misnomer.