Alphabet Route Origins

I've been wondering about the famed "Alphabet Route" fast freight
service that battled PRR, NYC, ERIE, etc. for decades. How did all
of those railroad companies (NKP-W&LE-P&WV-WM-RDG, etc)
manage to join forces to establish, market, and maintain this
competitive run-through service? Whose idea was it originally?
When was it first established? Who coined the "Alphabet Route"
phrase, and when?

- Ed Kyle

The key player in the mix was the Pittsburgh and West Virginia; for a detailed explanation, get Howard Worley and William Pellot's Pittsburgh and West Virginia; The Story of the High and Dry.

By the beginnings of the Twentieth Century, George Gould, son of financier Jay Gould, was assempling a network of lines with true-transcontinental aspirations. This included Rio Grande, Missouri Pacific and Wabash, and extended from Salt Lake City to Toledo.

Coal-hauler Wheeling and Lake Erie brought Gould's network within 50 miles of Pittsburgh, where a number of influentials were anxious to diminish the power of PRR and B&O. Western Pacific was not to enter the picture for another ten years or so.

The P&WV began construction in 1901 as an extension of the Gould empire from an unincorporated point on the W&LE in Harrison County, Ohio, and designated simply "Pittsburgh Junction". Although a general freight and passenger business in Pittsburgh was the first objective, it was not until the late 1920's that plans were finalized for a superbly-engineered line connecting with Western Maryland at the B&O division point of Connellsville.

Reading and Jersey Central then joined forces with WM to provide the final link in an eastern connection. When W&LE was absorbed into the Nickel Plate in the late 1940's, the way was clear for P&WV's inclusion in the "new" N&W merger of 1964.